Summary
Developing new skills and sharing best practices by local Salford citizens and communities through confidence building to reveal unlimited potential in all; some things UP can do are discussed by someone involved in a video presentation bottom left
Major Learning point for Citizen Enablement
All citizens, including the disabled, became able to release their undoubted potential to do wonderful projects for themselves of real value to the community. Some of the things of which Unlimited Potential are most proud of creating together with local people, and their greatest achievements to date, include:
o Healthy Communities Collaborative – increasing the rate of early-stage diagnosis of cancer and heart disease in low-income communities
o It’s A Goal! – using football as a metaphor to help long-term unemployed men to improve their mental health and well-being
o Social Value – developing our organisational social value through the use of social accounting and audit, and being a core member of the Salford Social Value Alliance and its 10% Better campaign.
The Case
Developed by Salford Local, Chris Dabbs, Unlimited Potential is a social enterprise in Salford which enriches peoples’ lives in the community. One of the early issues, reported by local people within the neighbourhood, was the lack of health care provision. In addition to having limited access to GP surgeries, death rates in this specific part of Salford was two and a half times the national average. As such, six local residents, who wanted to address the area’s health issues, came together to form a community group, which was later supported by a community development worker. This small community business was incorporated in 2002, and was dependent on grant funding for its first four years. The original aim of the community business was to create a healthy living centre, which would be run by the local community. Examining the group’s strengths, Dabbs could see that they were good at community engagement, but did not have the necessary skillset to run a health centre. As such, Dabbs, seen below on the left in their offices in the Innovation Forum, changed the focus of the business to deliver smaller health and wellbeing projects, working with people from the community that larger, more established health and wellbeing agencies were unable to reach.
In 2009, this community business achieved its legal status as a community benefit society. At the same time, UP became the first social enterprise in the North of England to receive the Social Enterprise Mark. The aim of UP was to develop innovative solutions to health and wellbeing problems for a variety of different clients including the NHS, local authority, charitable foundations and trusts. For example, UP has developed the ‘Breath Stars’ project which aimed to test whether singing improves the breathing of children with asthma. This project is funded by The Big Lottery, Salford Clinical Commissioning Group, and Salford CVS and is solely focused on children in Salford.
Many of the beneficiaries of UPs programmes are disadvantaged local people in the community, including people with dementia, teenagers, the long-term unemployed, and homeless people. UP is now recognised as a leader in employing disabled people and has been awarded Disability Confident Leader status by the Department of Work and Pensions. The Disability Confident scheme supports employers to make the most of the talents that disabled people can bring to the workplace. “With a focus on social innovation, Unlimited Potential benefits massively from having the talents and insights of disabled people at all levels of its organisation”, said Chris Dabbs, “We want to encourage and help other employers on their journey to being Disability Confident.”
Chris had the most interesting and inventive ideas for social development. He was, however, a powerful person in his own right, used to getting his own way. Unlimited Potential benefited from this former attribute as a Citizen Enabler, but was often held back by the latter. Ways and means had to be found by the organising committee to ensure he truly became a Citizen Enabler.
Major Learning point for Citizen Enablement
All citizens, including the disabled, became able to release their undoubted potential to do wonderful projects for themselves of real value to the community.
The Enabler
Chris Dabbs was the main Citizen Enabler of Unlimited Potential. As UP develops and grows, what was a small start has become a national beacon for change enabling the Government to achieve Citizen developments it would otherwise be unable to.
