Village Agents and Good Neighbour schemes are models used in Norfolk, England to provide support to vulnerable community members. Village Agents are paid staff who work directly with individuals and help connect them to services, while building community solutions. Good Neighbour schemes rely on volunteers to help with tasks like transportation and accessing services. Both aim to develop community resilience, though Village Agents provide more intensive support where needs are greater or capacity is lower.

1. Village Agents &
Good Neighbours
Norfolk RCC uses and promotes Good Neighbour
and Village Agent models as part of a strategic
approach to provide support to vulnerable
individuals but in a way that allows for a local focus
and reflects differences between communities.
The core of the strategy is that where needs are
moderate and community capacity is good the
volunteer led Good Neighbour model is effective.
Where need is greater or community capacity is
lower the officer based Village Agent model
provides extra support where it’s needed but with
the long term aim of building community resilience
Village Agents are a
paid embedded
support officer model.
Village Agents work
with individual
providing direct
support and helping
link them into others
services.
Where patterns of need or gaps exist they work to
support the community to develop their own
solutions. This can range from supporting the
establishment of local social activities or community
transport solutions to helping recruit local first
responders and arranging specialist training.
“It is simply great to know there is someone to
contact when you are unsure, anxious or
simply don’t know who to contact. They may
not know themselves but these village agents,
I’m sure would find someone who does – That’s
their role and they do it so well.”
Mary Granville-White, Chair, North Norfolk
Older Peoples Forum
Village agents usually have a 10 hour contract
operating over a cluster of parishes with a total
population in the region of 5,000. Village agents are
usually deployed in pairs to allow for mutual
support and absence cover. Although normally
targeted at supporting anyone vulnerable within the
community the Village Agent model can be used to
target a specific demographic over a wider area.
We expect village agents to provide intensive direct
support to around 100 individuals each year
alongside their work with the wider community.
We aim to target Village Agents into areas of
comparatively high need and lower levels of
community capacity. They provide more intensive
support to address current needs whilst helping
develop community solutions and resilience over
the longer-term.
Whilst Village Agents take time to build up the links
and trust they have with local communities once in
place they represent critical infrastructure for
engaging with hard to reach individuals. This can
help improve effectiveness and save time and
money for a range of initiatives.
The village agent model builds on work originally
piloted by Gloustershire RCC and adopted in a
range of areas across the UK. This brings the
benefits of shared learning and strong track record
of effective delivery and evidenced value for
money. In practical terms here are a few illustration
of what this work means:
 Helping Marge, a non-driving retired lady
access community transport to visit her
husband in hospital saving £50 in Taxi fares
per trip.
 Visiting young mum Liz, to help find the
paperwork she needed for a debt hearing.
Two hours of searching boxes and all was
in order.
 Helping John, an older gentleman and
newbie silver surfer, to set up Skype on his
computer so he can talk to his grandson in
America. 30 minutes to set up and he was
ready to go.
 Helping Jean access specialist support from
a local voluntary sector organisation to help
make it easier to live at home with her
health condition.
 Supporting a local coffee morning bringing
together a number of people at risk of being
lonely and isolated and giving them
something positive to look forward to.
 Arranging for first aid training, raising
awareness within a community working with
first responders and promoting the
installation of lifesaving automated external
defibrillators.

2. Norfolk Rural Community Council, Ambassador Way, Greens Road, Dereham, Norfolk NR20 3TL Registered Charity No:
1056750 Company Limited by Guarantee Registered in England and Wales No: 3190820 Version 6 April’13
Good neighbour schemes are a volunteer run
and led model. A local group form a steering group
taking it in turns to receive requests from clients
and match them with local volunteers able to
provide support. Task undertaken vary with each
local group but tend to cover basic odd-jobs,
support with accessing services and transport.
Good Neighbour schemes can provide an
important conduit for information straight to the
grassroots and an early warning system for
potential issues.
“The bottom line is that there’s a phone number
everyone can call to get a bit of help with little
things.”
Mike Hill, Chair of St Faiths Good
Neighbour Scheme, Norfolk
Good Neighbour schemes required intensive early
support to help engage the community, establish
the local groups and ensure they are operating
safely and legally. Once established they are
designed to be self-sustaining with low on-going
costs often met locally. However, lower level on-
going support and networking can help further
develop the communities knowledge and skills as
well as overall understanding of local need.
Good Neighbour Schemes usually have between
10-20 local volunteers and average around 5
requests for support a week. As an example of the
work undertaken by Good Neighbour Schemes
from the client perspective:
“Potter Heigham Good Neighbours' are
brilliant. Everyone is very helpful. We are
lucky to have a group of people who give their
time to us. The mentoring I get gives me the
time to talk through my week. It is also nice to
get out of the house and go to the shops etc.
The Surgery prescription run takes our worry
away knowing that our medication will be
delivered."
This client is in her late 80's and lost her husband
about 2 years ago. She has limited mobility and
needs help getting to the Post Office to collect her
pension.
Potter Heigham Good Neighbour Scheme
Coffee afternoon
Flu Clinic organised by a Good Neighbour
Scheme
For more information or to find out how
these models could help meet your
prioritise contact
Norfolk RCC on 01362 698216 or email
office@norfolkrcc.org.uk