Narratives of Wellbeing

The Frodsham Helsby and Elton Community Partnership funds and supports a range of projects, one of which is Frodsham Bee Friends, which began in November 2022. This enabled Bee Friends to provide coffee mornings, where tea coffee and biscuits were provided free of charge. This was so successful that monthly Soup Lunches were started in January 2023, again all free, and the funding received from a variety of sources. These became registered Places of Welcome and Warm Spaces.

The success of these initiatives in terms of footfall has been gratifying. In order to explore the impact of attending Bee Friends for both visitors and volunteers it soon became clear that it was necessary to go beyond bare attendance figures. 

Each week volunteers talk with visitors, they share their stories and by expanding and building on this, the opportunity arose to formalise this in the form of Narratives of Well Being. It was envisaged that the researcher would talk with and listen to both visitors and volunteers to explore what attendance at the Bee Friends’ Coffee Morning and Soup Lunches means for them. A part time researcher was appointed for 3 months to head up this project.  The expectation was that the project would be small scale, focussed, systematic and achievable.  It was anticipated that the report would lead to a greater understanding of what is needed by members of the community and identifying trigger points in order that future support is appropriately targeted. 

It was always anticipated that this would be a pilot project, and it was appreciated that there are other projects supported by the Care Community partnership that will also benefit from a study such as this, and thus this was seen as the first chapter in a larger document recording the impact of the Community Partnership’s significant investment in the communities of Frodsham, Helsby and Elton. By feeding back the findings of this project we are valuing the investment that the Community Partnership has made to our community.

The initial project was managed and monitored by a small Steering Group who have a range of experience of undertaking qualitative research. And it is anticipated that this will continue in the future research projects. This series of research findings could lead to a consideration of the wider needs of the community. The emerging themes serving to inform future decision making. The positive insight gained from this larger project will be available to inform both policy and practice. The systematic processes will identify patterns which can be acted upon, drawing out common threads, leading to specific outcomes.