Community Call: Learning for the Future – Webinar
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From: Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht
- Published on: 22 October 2021
- Last updated on: 12 April 2025
- 220 participants took part in Webinar yesterday to consider the topic of capturing the learnings from Community Call.
Joe O’Brien TD Minster of State with responsibility for Community Development and Charities, yesterday (21st October), hosted a Community Call “Learning for the Future” webinar yesterday, which was attended by 220 participants and he took the opportunity to thank everyone for their role they played in the Community Call.
Co-hosted by NESC and the Department of Rural and Community Development, there was huge interest in the event which featured contributions from Local Authorities, the Community and Voluntary Sector, Age Friendly Ireland and panelists from Government Departments and the local Development Sector. There was robust discussion about the Community Call and how local collaboration between state and community organisations enabled an effective response during the worst of the pandemic, helping those most in need in our communities.
Minister O’Brien said:
“I was eager to have this event today because I feel it’s vital that we don’t just capture and retain the learnings from Community Call Programme but that we try to identify practical specific ways in our current and future work where we can implement these learnings or find new ways of doing things.
“The manner in which State agencies, community and voluntary groups and volunteers came together when we we’re facing a truly unprecedented challenge- perhaps the most difficult of our times – and worked efficiently and effectively together to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable during Covid was something extraordinary. We can and must harness that spirit of March and April last year where we were collaborative and determined and very practical about what needed to happen and open minded about how to do it.
“Yesterday’s event and the honest discussions around what worked and what could work better will help us focus our attention now on how the success of the initiative can be built upon, and how innovative aspects of the work can be replicated, going forward to continue to support people in our local communities.”
Dr. Larry O’Connell, Director of NESC, also welcomed the interest at the seminar. He stressed that:
“There are wider lessons from the experience of designing and implementing the Call that can help policy makers and service deliverers to tackle other challenges, such as climate change.”
ENDS
Notes for editors:
- The Community Call was an initiative between this Department and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to get help to the most vulnerable in our society in the early uncertain days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- It mobilised the voluntary effort in every Local Authority area. A webinar; Community Call: Learning for the Future was held on 21st October. This webinar, hosted by the Department of Rural and Community Development and NESC, statutory, local authority and community and voluntary speakers reflected on how these new ways of working can be built upon for effective policy and service delivery in future.
Some of the key learnings from the NESC report (which can be found at this link: http://files.nesc.ie/nesc_secretariat_papers/No_22_CommunityCall.pdf)
- The importance of Leadership, co-ordination & relationships.
- Working relationships between the statutory & community & voluntary sectors.
- The flexibility and local knowledge of community and voluntary organisations was also key to the success of community call.
- Supporting the vulnerable and the new groups which were identified by Community Call and how will their needs will be continue to be addressed?
- Communication and data are key – to identify the vulnerable, co-ordinate responses and report on what is happening.
- As the Community Call model mechanisms be used to tackle other problems.