Innovation Exchange celebrated the first anniversary of its Next Practice programme in London last Wednesday. 13 of our Next Practice projects came from far and wide – with big shouts of gratitude to our friends from Liverpool, Huddersfield, Bristol and beyond - to share stories of their development and future ambitions. Projects were joined by a great collection of guests, including Innovation Exchange stakeholders, senior policy leads from DCSF and DoH, social investors and other third sector innovation supporters and champions.

We were  delighted to be joined by Rt Hon Anne McGuire MP and Cabinet Office Advisor on Third Sector Innovation – Anne has been a great champion of the programme since its inception. If you’d like to see her comments on challenges and opportunities for third sector innovators, watch this space. We’ll be uploading some snippets of video soon. 

Next Practice One Year on showcased a collection of outstanding innovation projects working on critical challenges, including enabling independent living, supporting excluded young people, reducing re-offending and tackling worklessness and financial exclusion. But the event also asked guests to be part of the exchange; to offer challenge and support to projects  so that they might be strengthened and make new connections which help them to develop and grow.

Our inboxes at Innovation Exchange have been pinging with messages from participants wanting to be put in touch with each other. For an innovation broker, this is all great news. We hope most of all that the event started conversations that might lead to our projects growing their great work so more people can feel its benefit.

Innovation Exchange will soon be publishing a learning paper on its Next Practice prorgramme – let us know if you’d like to be put on our mailing list.

If you’re working around mental health and based in the North West then we want to hear from you. This could be just the opportunity you need to take your work forward. Follow this link and find out more.

For those of you who have already responded to our Call for Ideas – thank you for your application. We endeavour to get back to you by the end of next week. We apologise for any inconvenience.

Innovation Exchange has been blown away by the local interest in this event, but we could do with a stonger response from innovative providers in the North West who think they might have the answer to better mental health. Raj urged local third sector providers to respond to our Call for Ideas, lest the event be dominated by innovators and providers from other parts of the country. Come on Bolton! Come on Wigan! Come on Lancaster and Liverpool! Raj explained that our Festivals of Ideas are designed around locally identified priorities and challenges and aim to develop services for local implementation – the presence of local innovators is therefore crucial.  Will the Cheema charm work its magic and strengthen the presence of North Western innovators at our Festival of Ideas? I’d wager it will – it hasn’t failed us yet.

“We need to work together with passion and commitment to help everyone lead fulfilling, independent lives.”
Paul Hanson, Chair of the North East Joint Improvement Partnership

Innovation Exchange is working with the North East Joint Improvement Partnership to seek out and support some of the innovation projects that can help to personalise social care and generate new efficiencies.  We are staging a Festival of Ideas on Thursday 12th November, drawing together commissioners, investors and supporters around these innovations.  You can view highlights from our last Festival of Ideas here.

This Festival will launch the North East JIP’s ‘Provider Development Innovation Fund’, which aims to support providers to work with the public sector on personalisation to better meet the care needs of service users.  The event is an important opportunity in its own right and an excellent way to learn about the ‘Provider Development Innovation Fund’ and to start to develop a possible application. The event will look at innovations with the potential to create new effectiveness and efficiency across, but not limited to, the following themes:

• New approaches to providing personalised personal care
• Support brokerage and advocacy
• Advice, information and guidance
• The potential of user-led and community-led approaches
• Safeguarding and risk-management
• The potential of new technology

If you are an innovator in the third sector and would like to attend this event to promote and develop your work and to connect with commissioners and investors, please respond to our call for ideas.

If you are a commissioner of services in the public sector or work for a trust, foundation or another organisaion looking to collaborate with innovators in this space, please email us for a space at this event. You can see a copy of the invitation for investors and commissioners here.

Innovation Exchange’s Next Practice programme is supporting 15 of the country’s most outstanding third sector innovation projects in the areas of independent living and supporting excluded young people selected from a competitive field of around 200 applicants.

A year ago in November, many of us gathered at Amnesty International in London for the launch of the programme to share our aspirations. One year on, we’re meeting again to see how we’re going. What successes have we had? What impact have we made? And what challenges remain for Next Practice projects and for third sector innovators more generally?

Next Practice: One year on is an important learning event for Innovation Exchange and an opportunity for projects to engage policy champions, potential supporters and other stakeholders in their work.

It is expensive to be poor. Riverside Credit Union exists to tackle this problem. Watch this five minute film to find out how Riverside, one of Innovation Exchange’s Next Practice projects, is financially empowering the people of Speke, near Liverpool, and strengthening a community from within. The Exchange went to Speke to make this film in partnership with Riverside and filmmaker, Gabriel Amaral from Mimo Productions.   

The event will bring together leading innovators, commissioners and investors to meet one another, learn about, and critique these innovations and work together to develop them. It could be just what a third sector innovation needs to find the intelligence and the partnerships to help it go from strength to strength.

You can watch highlights from our last Festival of Ideas here.