Place partnership: Bolton

Place Partner Mission

Since 2018 Bolton have been part of Greater Manchester’s Place Partnership with Sport England to build healthier, more active communities.

The partnership aims to reduce inactivity and health inequalities. To do this we take a place-based, approach that brings together people, communities, and organisations to create sustainable solutions to inactivity.

Key learnings (2019-24)

Bolton’s place team have made significant progress in the first five years of the partnership. The most significant shift, has been the wider council adopting a strengths-based approach for working with communities. The adoption of this approach was accelerated in covid, when the place team successfully used the place principles as part of Bolton covid response. To hear more about Bolton’s work in early years of the local pilot please listen to the Bolton podcast

Unified language

It was identified early on that across the system a lot of different language was being used. This difference language caused confusion and contributed to siloed working. By developing a shared language Bolton were able to change how Sport, Movement and Physical Activity was framed. This consistency contributed to a feeling of unity and supported places and sectors feeling more open to collaboration.

Shared principles and approach

The shared language and framing led to Bolton developing a Bolton wide approach to the work. At first Bolton adopted the initial GM place partnership principles. Over time as the place team worked more closely with public health, these principles evolved. This led to the principles becoming incorporated into the wider wellbeing agenda within Bolton.

A key moment for the place team was when it became part of the wider public health team. This was a result of increasing collaboration between the teams and provided a greater platform for the place team to spread its influence. One result of this incorporation was some initial local pilot posts become mainstreamed and funded directly via public health.

ABCD (Asset based community development) is core to the Bolton place work. As the place team influence reach has expanded ABCD has become embedded across wider teams. ABCD is now seen as a standard way of working across multiple groups and organisations. Examples of these groups include; Community engagement and development team, community alliance team, Libraries and GP Federation.  

To learn more about Bolton's place based approach, and the impact it can have please watch the Five Ways to Happy days video.

Thank you to Bolton's place partnership team for providing this video 

Workforce development

To support the embedding of ABCD, Bolton have invested into a shared skills programme for front facing staff. This programme aims to build confidence and ensure consistency in community engagement across the borough. ABCD embodies the place partnership principles and ensures that community members remain at the heart of the work.  Building relationships and community strengths is central to all work. The focus around place also allows Bolton to connect up work across a place to further emphasise community collaboration.  To see this in action please read the Deane and Derby cricket club case story.

GM Moving Podcast

Episode 2 of the second series of the GM Moving podcast, released on Thursday 18 August 2022, looks at Bolton's place partner work. 

Host Eve Holt speaks to Tracy Lumer, Public Health specialist at Bolton Council, about the approach taken in Bolton and how the place partners ways of working have gone beyond physical activity and even supported the Covid vaccination response.

Full transcript for the episode can be found here.

Listen to the full episode here, or search for it on other podcast platforms such as Spotify or Apple.

Click here to learn more about Bolton's deepening plans