Community insight and co-design in King’s Park, Hackney (2019–2020)

King’s Park Moving Together was a community-led programme established to help residents of King’s Park in Hackney become more physically active.

The programme formed part of Sport England’s Local Delivery Pilot initiative and was delivered with London Borough of Hackney, local organisations and community partners.

Hall Aitken was the programme’s insight and co-design partner during 2019 and 2020. Its role focused on engaging the local community, understanding the barriers to physical activity and using community insight to help shape potential solutions.

Hall Aitken provided community insight, co-design and capacity-building support through community engagement, research and an embedded team of local community researchers. The work informed the programme’s emerging plan of action and supported greater community participation in its development.

Approach

Recruiting local community researchers. Hall Aitken recruited, trained and developed three local people to work as community researchers for King’s Park Moving Together. The researchers gathered community insight and helped represent the perspectives of the local community.
Gathering community insight. The team delivered a series of engagement events and pop-up activities to gather evidence from local residents. Findings were presented through short reports and presentations for stakeholders and community organisations.
Supporting co-design. Hall Aitken used the insight gathered through community engagement and research to inform the programme’s emerging plan of action. The team also provided capacity-building support to the project team, partners and local organisations as part of the co-design process.
Strengthening community participation. As the community researchers developed their skills and confidence, the researchers attended meetings to present their findings and represent community perspectives in decision-making. A film featuring the community researchers was also produced as one of the project outputs.

Outcomes

The community insight gathered during the first year contributed to the evidence supporting a successful first round of Sport England investment.

The work also developed local capacity to participate in King’s Park Moving Together. On 1 May 2020, Hall Aitken handed the community research team over to a local partnership so that the researchers could continue their work.

Through their involvement, the community researchers progressed from gathering local insight to presenting findings at meetings and representing community perspectives in decision-making. The project therefore produced evidence to inform the programme while developing a locally based research resource that could continue beyond Hall Aitken’s direct involvement.