Lancashire Time Credits
Lancashire County Council and Spice Innovations are working together to roll out Time Credits across Lancashire and the North West over the next three years.
This is building on the highly successful and ongoing Time Credit programme in Chorley which has been running since 2012 and delivering great outcomes across a range of health, wellbeing and community services. In this programme over 1300 local people have contributed over 18,000 hours through 90 groups, as well as key parts of the Council’s local delivery.
About us
Spice is a social enterprise that has developed a unique model called Spice Time Credits. People earn a printed Time Credit for each hour that they give to a service or community organisation. They can then spend this Time Credit in the organisation where they earned it or across a network of partners in that area and beyond.
For example someone could earn a Time Credit for providing peer support in a mental health service or helping a pupil with their reading in an after school club. They could then use that Time Credit to go swimming for an hour at their local leisure centre or save them up to visit the Blackpool Tower or go to London and spend them at the Tower of London and on a boat trip with Thames Clippers. One hour contributed always equals one hour of activity.
Over 700 community organisations and groups currently use Time Credits to develop new approaches to working with local communities and people who use services. Spice also have a network of over 600 venues nationally where people can spend Time Credits. In the North West there are over 70 places where people can spend Time Credits from football clubs to leisure centres to local theatres.
Earn Time Credits
- Litter-picking in the park
- Driving the mini-bus for the local day centre
- Helping out at your local club
- Attending or setting up a peer support group
Spend Time Credits
- At the place where you earned them
- On other local activities and opportunities
- Give them to someone as a thank you
- Somewhere across our UK network
Impact and outcomes
Time Credits have been proven through robust independent evaluation to support a range of key outcomes for individuals, organisations and communities. As a tool they encourage new people to become involved in services and across communities supporting resilience, prevention, self-efficacy and unlock a wide range of human and physical assets. Here is a snapshot of some of our key outcomes. Our evaluation reports are available on our website.
How to get involved
We are working with hundreds of organisations to integrate Time Credits into their work. The focus of Time Credits in your organisation is up to you. They can be applied in many ways: for example, they can support volunteer recruitment and retention, increase physical activity and health outcomes, improve the quality of care through involving and co-producing with service users, and increase tenant satisfaction – the list goes on and on!
Underpinning this is a tried and tested model of support and training to help you every step of the way. Our team is experienced in working with organisations of all kinds to make sure you get the most from this fantastic tool.
To find out more contact:
Becky Hedgcock
Lancashire Time Credits
Senior Project Manager
becky.hedgcock@justaddspice.org
07462 226175
Facebook LancashireTimeCredits
Twitter @lancstimecredit