Highland Community Care Forum - Annual Report 2003

We are often asked to unravel the layers of Highland Community Care Forum and explain the interconnections.

This year's Annual Report tries to reflect our multidimensional nature.

We hope the reader will get a clear sense of where we are in Highland; how our work has an impact throughout Scotland; what we have done over the year working in different ways according to need and local circumstance but towards the same goals.

The Forum Network
The interactions within the HCCF network is more than the connection implied by lines drawn on a map joining one geographical location to another.

Our network seldom connects in straight lines. It is a network after all, and it is based on relationships. These are what hold communities together, villages and towns as well as communities of interest.

What we do is straightforward: we work to let people speak to each other and to those who make decisions about their lives and who provide them with services of one kind or another. We connect to each other like interlocking circles.

Forums relate to each other, and to the network, in different ways. This is affected by local circumstances, as well as by more distant events such as policy changes, new technologies or legislation. Each Forum or project works with a small number of people in their area, including other local groups who, in turn, may work with others in many different spheres. A chain of contact and influence runs from peoplesÕ most immediate circles to interact with others at different regional and national levels.

Numbers alone do not give a real sense of a Forum's or a project's reach. For Forums in our network, direct contacts vary between 12 to 90 individuals but, through local groups and agencies, there could be 300 or 400 more.

With eleven Forums and several other projects HCCF connects around 3,000 people. Every individual, every Forum can potentially reach that number through the network, and from there reach the rest of Scotland or the UK. In the end, this is what counts.

The Medium and the Message
The ways in which Forums approach their work, and the different ways in which they understand and interpret it, mean that the network as a whole should not be defined by statistical analysis alone. It is perhaps simplistic to measure the work we do by numbers: of people and products. We need the balance of qualitative measures: how people feel and interact with each other or the bodies governing their lives.

Our network works locally through facilitators and project workers who, with core staff, also connect with groups and agencies at regional and national levels. We maintain channels of communication between different circles of influence. Principally we work by meeting people, bringing them together and organising participative events, using the most appropriate technologies available.

HCCF is the voice of users and carers, and our network is its means of speaking out. The people in the network bring their own particular experiences, their expertise and connections. HCCF articulates their views and concerns, communicating and representing them to decision-makers. What makes HCCF so powerful is our many layers. HCCF is both the medium and the message.

Annual Report 2003
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Annual Report 2003

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