Evaluation of a Community COVID Response

Trueman Change Involvement

Trueman Change were required to understand the changes, improvements and challenges faced during the pandemic. From this, we worked to identify improvements in ways of working, alongside future ideas for sustainable change.  Trueman Change provided rigorous evaluation services to Hyndburn Borough Council, which received further funds to enable their community hub to build on its work in connecting people. Our work is supporting the council to  work with two local NHS Primary Care Networks (PCNs) and East Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to develop new and lasting connections between voluntary agencies and the Integrated Neighbourhood Team who delivered wraparound care for people exposed to COVID-19, and others who were particularly vulnerable to the pandemic.

We developed and implemented an evaluation of the council’s community response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We used our evidence-based research and evaluation expertise to determine the specifics of how the evaluation would be carried out and presented.   Our rigorous methodological approach to evaluation provided us with sound operative recommendations for how the organisations and people across Hyndburn should work together in the future to improve health & wellbeing outcomes for the Hyndburn community.  Our successful outcome resulted in an ongoing positive relationship with this council and we shared our skills with them by providing shadowing experience to an apprentice.

Outcomes and Solutions

To overcome these challenges we: 

• Conducted multiple workshops and interviews with key stakeholders
• Sent out three digital surveys to various stakeholders to get under the skin of the organisation
• Completed initial theme mapping
• Worked in collaboration to visually evaluate and present

Our final output was a thorough evaluation report that included:

• Key findings - headlines and good news to share with partners and other stakeholders
• Detailed findings on the efficacy and impact of the community COVID response and Hub Operation, mapped by themes identified during the evaluation
• Rapid recommendations- each theme had Rapid Recommendations for immediate implementation
• A culture map of partnership working in the borough
• Substantive Recommendations to embed the positive changes made during the pandemic response, including co-designed Partnership Principles
• Having built up a good working relationship with the Council, we were able to understand their priorities and vision for the future and add substantial insight and recommendations to inform their future plans.

Additional Value Added

In addition to our core service, we hosted a young Council apprentice to shadow the project lead. This gave the apprentice the opportunity to see how a different sector works, and pick up project management, client relationship, and reporting skills.

• Buying local – whether for our business or buying our lunch, we consciously try to support other local businesses where we work
• Supporting young people into employment – a Kickstart scheme young employee worked on this contract and we now employ her on a permanent basis
• Supporting education – Lucy Trueman, Managing Director is a volunteer Enterprise Adviser for a local school 
• Supporting our communities – Lucy works with the People’s Powerhouse and Lizzi Collinge, Project Manager, serves the public as a County Councillor
• Other employees also volunteer their time to charities 
• Protecting the environment – we are virtually paper-free and we use public or low-carbon transport wherever possible