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Ambition 2 Supporting communities and families

Nottinghamshire has a diverse range of communities in our market towns, rural villages and urban centres. Supportive, vibrant communities can boost health and wellbeing, give people a sense of belonging, and create enjoyable, welcoming places to live.

Our libraries, children's centres and youth services are already doing exactly that and we need to make sure they meet demand and provide the best possible services for all our communities and families.

We know too that the Covid-19 pandemic created new challenges for our communities and made existing problems worse. During those difficult times, neighbours, volunteers, and members of our communities stepped forward to care for the most vulnerable, and we’d like to build on those new relationships, systems, and goodwill to help everyone thrive.  We also learnt a lot about communities’ needs during the pandemic and will use that knowledge to target our resources and support towards those who need it most, while providing services for all.  

Over the next few years, we plan to:

  • strengthen our relationships with the voluntary and community sector
  • empower people to help themselves in their own communities
  • make the most of community-based services to offer early help and interventions, and reduce the need for more complex and costly support later on
  • look at opportunities to share property with our partners to reduce our carbon footprint
  • deliver more joined-up services, closer to the communities we serve.

The Big Notts Survey

  • Over 1 in 3 (38%) of those 65 said the community coming together was one of the top positives that had come out of the pandemic
  • 1 in 3 people (32%) said strengthened community ties were something they would most like to see continue after the pandemic.

Over the next four years we will:

We’ll develop our Community and Voluntary Sector Compact to build stronger and longer-term partnerships that better support the voluntary sector. 

We will build on what we’ve learnt through the pandemic, to better meet the needs of the most disadvantaged:

  • We’ll deliver social recovery plans for those most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and direct resources and funding to initiatives that will help the most disadvantaged.
  • We’ll further develop our Community Support Hub and look at ways we can use technology to help partners and volunteers support people more effectively.
  • We’ll launch and deliver a new four-year Local Communities Fund programme to fund community initiatives and projects where the need is greatest.

We’ll support and empower those we work with to make a positive contribution and make a difference to the things in their community that matter to them.

We will deliver our ‘Best Start’ Strategy [PDF] so that all children grow up in the best possible health, are protected from harm, and can access an education that helps them reach their full potential.

We will pilot new Family Hubs to offer early integrated help to better meet the needs of families. Family Hubs will bring together a range of organisations who serve the local community to address local families’ specific needs.

To support children with special educational needs and their families, we’ll improve the range of local, specialist services, and look at ways we can better support those preparing for adulthood.

We’ll develop our libraries as community, cultural and learning hubs, and we’ll keep our comprehensive libraries network.  We’ll provide a range of events, courses and activities that are accessible in local communities and affordable for everyone. And, we’ll support young children to develop language, reading and motor skills.

We’ll invest in our Youth Service so that young people have somewhere safe to go, trusted youth workers to talk to, and fun and engaging things to do. We’ll also run outdoors activity experiences for our foster care families and all our children in care.

We’ll keep investing in our registration services for births, deaths, marriages and civil partnerships, to provide the best support we can for milestone moments in everyone’s lives.

We’ll offer people with social care needs the right support, at the right time and close to home. We’ll strengthen our multi-agency community teams and make it easier for people to find help when they need it most. This will help people to have a good life in their local communities and avoid more costly interventions later.   

We’ll look for opportunities to share property and services with our partners, allowing us to bring services together in local communities to provide value for money and easier access for people.

Through our cross-Council ‘Early Help and Prevention’ transformation programme we’ll look at ways of providing the right support early on. This will better support communities and families and prevent more costly interventions later on.

In 2025-26, to achieve this, we will deliver the following actions:

So that Nottinghamshire’s residents can lead a full and meaningful life connected to family, friends, and community, doing the things that matter to them.

So that all children and young people are able to access the educational provision that enables them to thrive.

So that communities are more resilient to the risk of future flooding and understand how to maximise the benefits of support on offer, ensuring those we work with are supported and empowered to make a positive contribution and difference in their community. 

So that the health and wellbeing needs of children and young people are identified and addressed early, and families in Nottinghamshire are supported to give children the best start in life, keeping them healthy, safe and enabling them to reach their full potential.

To find out more about what we’ve got planned for the current year, you can read our full Annual Delivery Plan 2025-2026 [PDF].

Our other ambitions

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