Looking Back, Moving Forward: Stories From Covid Times

Community quilt created in Dudley to represent the Covid-19 pandemic

In autumn 2021, Dudley Council commissioned the Ideas Alliance to help them get a better understanding of how the pandemic had impacted on people’s lives, in order to inform priorities for the future. The brief included the use of storytelling and one requested outcome was a visual representation of the experiences of the people of Dudley. 

When the waters recede, the flood has not finished

Hope grafittied on a wall with rainbow in the sky

Neil Denton explores his lived experience of working with disaster-affected communities, relates this journey to the Covid-19 pandemic and considers a recovery based on connection, collaboration and trust.

Understanding the 9 million active neighbours of lockdown

A stylised graphic showing human figures working together to move different shapes around.

The coronavirus crisis saw a huge movement of community activity and support. Immy Robinson, co-lead of the Relationships Project, shares their research about what made people come together. How we can support the different types of active neighbour with an ecology that enables community activity to thrive?

A year on: Are everyday people our new invisible trauma and loss workers?

A carved wooden hand holds up the heavy branches of a tree.

Trainer Lourdes Colclough highlights an extraordinary new role being carried out by members of the community in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: informal trauma and grief counselling. She tells us about the training being offered to those stepping up to fill gaps in formal mental health support.

A year on: still looking in

Nurse Rachel Campbell in an office

Inflammatory bowel disease Nurse Rachel Campbell reflects on her experience of working with patients during the pandemic: what’s changed, what’s here to stay and what the future holds.

Lighting up the dark: Window Wanderland

A local primary school offers a message of hope with this rainbow window depicting a child and a book.

Something very exciting is happening in the windows of Coventry. A mass community event is spreading hope and helping neighbours to talk to one another in new ways through the medium of creativity and fun.

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