A series of special seminars focusing on Building and Celebrating Communities was held in South Lanarkshire in June.

The events sought to explore how South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership can generate more space for communities to create the things that matter to them – and how the partnership can support these activities.

Val de Souza, director of health and social care, (pictured) explained: “South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership’s vision is working together to improve health and wellbeing in the community – with the community.

“This is about improving people’s experience of health and social care. It is also about helping people living in their communities to live well, to know how to enhance their health and wellbeing and for communities to recognise their strengths, their dependencies and interdependencies.

“We want to live that vision – and we want people at the heart of communities to be part of it.

“Our aim – and indeed the aim of the events – was to tap into the expertise, energy and knowledge at grassroots level.”

SLH&SCP’s Building and Celebrating Communities programme will be based on the principles of asset-based community development (ABCD). ABCD challenges, and can positively compliment, the wider traditional approaches that try to solve urban and rural development challenges by focusing on the needs and deficiencies of individuals and communities.

ABCD demonstrates that people, local assets and individual strengths are key to ensure sustainable community development, and that people have a life of their own choosing.