How to develop a Caring and Compassionate Neighbourhood?
Authors: D'Eer Louise , Putman Joke 
Published: January 2024

Background: The concept of Caring Neighbourhoods is both in Flanders and worldwide widely known. However, how to integrate the topics of serious illness, death and loss into a Caring Neighbourhood via a co-creative process with citizens and partners remain largely unknown.

Aim: In this workshop, we will present the case of Compassionate Sint-Kruis and inspirational examples of neighbourhood actions around serious illness, death and loss. Additionally, this workshop aims to familiarise people with drafting a Theory of Change model to understand how actions can lead to certain results and outcomes.

Participants: This workshop is for everyone interested in developing a Compassionate or Caring Neighbourhood or being an active part of it. Both people with experience in neighbourhood work around serious illness, death and loss and people without experience in the subject are welcome.

Methods:

1)Presenting the case of Compassionate Sint-Kruis and inspirational examples for involving the neighbourhood (e.g. Soup with chats, Nodes City Festival, involving neighbourhood committees) (25 min).

2)Divide the participants into groups of five (2 min.)

3)An introduction to the exercise and presenting the fictional case of Neighbourhood Welcome (3 min).  ‘Neighbourhood Welcome’ is located in a semi-urbanised village with approximately 2.000 inhabitants. The neighbourhood is characterised by some challenges, e.g. a large group of older people who live alone and feel disconnected from the neighbourhood, and a large group of informal caregivers. Additionally, the neighbourhood is also characterised by some important assets e.g. residential care centres that are looking for active ways to involve the neighbourhoods and active neighbourhood committees.

4)Doing the first part of the Theory of Change exercise (15 min). This entails that each group formulates five results/outputs they want to realise with ‘Neighbourhood Welcome’ (based on the neighbourhood challenges and assets).

5)Plenary feedback where each group can share their chosen outputs (10 min). The two workshop leaders will write all the outputs on a whiteboard and provide some feedback per group.

6)Doing the second part of the Theory of Change exercise (15 min). Participants are asked to formulate actions, and inputs that are in line with the chosen outputs.

7)Plenary feedback where people can share their chosen actions and inputs  (10 min). The two workshop leaders will write all the actions and inputs on a whiteboard and provide feedback.

8)A closing moment where the workshop leaders will discuss the final Theory of Change and where people can share their experiences with the exercise (10 min).

End goal: People will go home having had an example of what a Caring and Compassionate Neighbourhood can look like. They will have achieved the skill of drawing up a Theory of Change model that includes possible outputs and actions for integrating compassionate topics into a Caring Neighbourhood. After the workshop, an electronic version of the Theory of Change model will be distributed to all participants.