BACKGROUND
Northumberland County Council’s County Partnership (NCCCP) approached INE to support the methodological underpinnings and establish a pilot of the Living Archive project, as part of their work as a Marmot Council. The initiative aims to track generational change in Northumberland over the next 20 years and reduce inequalities in the county.
WHAT WE DID
INE supported the Partnership, which includes the council and key partners from education, housing, police, NHS trusts, the business sector, and community and voluntary sector, to frame the project and develop the methodology. INE ran a Defining the Challenge workshop, bringing in academic experts and stakeholders, and recruited and trained 10 community researchers who collected hundreds of photos and conducted 28 interviews.
A living archive to be hosted on the NCC website, a lessons learned report and a policy report
NCC successfully bid for a Local Area Research Practitioner to continue coordinating the Northumberland Experiences community research
Community researchers gained valuable skills, with invitations to contribute to the NCC community listening exercise and the Heart of the Hirst consultation
The open-ended approach and training researchers to conduct research themselves was welcomed by the community
“The process wouldn’t have been so long if we’d known about INE beforehand… It’s expanded our horizons. Our default setting is to pull together an internal working group, but this has expanded vastly beyond what we thought it could.”
Jill Davison, Head of Policy and Performance,
Northumberland County Council
