What is a Community Navigator?

Community Navigators give people a chance to explore opportunities in their local area and how they might become involved with more people, groups and activities. Participants will be allocated a personal Community Navigator, who will work with them to think about how to become more involved with other people and their community, and who will support them to take steps towards achieving this aim. Participants will be offered 10 meetings with their Community Navigator over a six-month period in order to do this.

To support participants in meeting other people and feeling part of their community, Community Navigators will provide support in three main ways:

1. Reviewing each participant's existing social network, the people they like seeing, activities they enjoy and the places they go. We have developed a mapping tool which Community Navigators can use with people to help visualise this process.
2. Supporting people to develop and use an action plan to increase connectedness.This will be person-centred and include: providing information about available activities and sources of support locally; practical help to access activity including help with phone calls or application forms; access to financial support from a small budget; emotional support to overcome barriers; support linking people in to available self-management; and helping people to develop appropriate skills.
3. Facilitating two to three group meetings running alongside their 1:1 support. Attendance is optional but Community Navigators will encourage and support all participants to join in where possible. The group will provide opportunities to meet co-participants, discuss the programme's aims and progress, and share information about helpful local resources and experiences. Each meeting will have a loose agenda tailored to the needs of those taking part to achieve maximum impact.

There are three Community Navigators currently working with participants across Barnet, Camden and Islington. They have completed five days of training specific to this role, which you can read about in their blog. Their role will be refined through experience of and feedback from the preliminary phase of the study. This is what the Community Navigators had to say in March 2017: