Strengthening Local Welcome Infrastructure
by Beth Worku-Dix
Sometimes the strength of an idea becomes clearer when you begin to see it reflected in action.
For several years, organisations across the UK have been creating the conditions for welcome in their local communities. They have done this through practical support, trusted relationships, community spaces, local knowledge and sustained work with people who are rebuilding their lives in unfamiliar places.
The work of the Welcome Coalition
Through the Welcome Coalition, many of these organisations have also been part of a wider effort to make the practice, value and infrastructure of welcome more visible across the sector and to those who fund, support and shape it. Practitioners, community organisations, researchers, infrastructure organisations and funders have brought together delivery experience, local knowledge, lived experience, evidence and insight into what it takes to resource this work well, helping to bring wider recognition to work that is deeply understood locally but still under-recognised in policy and funding conversations.
At Neighbourly Lab, we have contributed to this work alongside our partners at The Pickwell Foundation and The Good Faith Partnership as part of the Welcome Coalition.
Over the past year, we have been mapping welcome infrastructure across the UK, alongside qualitative research into how local ecosystems develop and how people navigate support, connection and belonging within them. We have previously shared insight from our work, which you can find about Bristol, Renfrewshire, Devon.
We have also worked with Henry Smith Foundation as it developed its new funding programme, sharing emerging learning and contributing to discussions about what local welcome infrastructure could be supported through investment.
Our research will be published later this year, so we are not setting out the findings in detail here.
Henry Smith Foundation’s Welcome for Newcomers Fund
At this stage, we are pleased to see the launch of the Henry Smith Foundation’s Welcome for Newcomers fund. The fund recognises the importance of organisations and partnerships that combine specialist support, social and community activity, and work to improve the wider conditions for Welcome.
This is an important milestone for the sector. It recognises that Welcome takes practical work, local trust, physical space, coordination and time. These are the things organisations have been holding for many years, often with limited resources and against a difficult wider context.
It also invites a broader reflection. Public debate around migration and belonging is placing real pressure on communities. The question for funders, policymakers, researchers and practitioners is how we respond to that pressure in ways that strengthen the places people live.
Part of that response has to be investment.
Investment in the organisations that know their communities. Investment in spaces where relationships can form. Investment in partnerships that help people move between specialist support, social connection and civic participation. Investment in the local social infrastructure that shapes the kind of communities we will have in the years ahead.
We welcome the Henry Smith Foundation’s commitment to this work and hope it encourages others to recognise the value of Welcome as part of the social infrastructure that supports strong, connected communities.
We look forward to sharing our research later this year and continuing this work with partners across the sector.
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