Health |

Cheaper Energy: Together »

With one in two families in some neighbourhoods struggling to pay fuel bills, Birmingham & Solihull Together promises cheaper bills by clubbing together. The scheme is open to anyone who lives in Birmingham or Solihull and – if you have your most recent gas and electric bills handy – it’s easy to check how much [...]

February 28, 2013 | Posted in Featured,News,Pictures | Read More »

The Drugs Don’t Work »

The drugs don’t work. No painkiller beats dealing with the source of the pain. No opiate can deliver a high as sustainably as our own bodies can. This would be a matter for each of us to work out for ourselves, except that the full cost of drug abuse is not just paid by the [...]

June 25, 2012 | Posted in Pictures,Policy | Read More »

Why a ‘woolly’ approach to mental health might be best… »

What have tomatoes got to do with mental health? Economist Richard Layard highlights the scale of mental illness in the UK, and the lack of access to treatment: More than 6 million of us suffering from treatable forms of anxiety and depression Three quarters not able to get access to treatment It’s clear that treating [...]

June 24, 2012 | Posted in Hannah Worth,Opinion | Read More »

The Future of Health and Social Care »

Reforms in health and social care services are needed to enable: decision making to take place at the best level – too much is too centralised and based on data extracted from an area, rather than real information about life in it public services to support and enable self-help – not enough emphasis is put [...]

March 9, 2012 | Posted in Policy | Read More »

Future of Health & Social Care 12 March 4.30pm in Ladywood »

The next Chamberlain Forum meeting features Councillor Steve Bedser (Birmingham City Council Shadow Cabinet member for Adult & Community Services) and other guests for a discussion of the future of local health and social care services in Birmingham. We’ll be looking at how the Health & Social Care Bill and other changes affecting health and [...]

February 14, 2012 | Posted in Events,Featured | Read More »

Conservative Health Plans – The Neighbourhood View »

The Conservatives launched the first part of their draft election manifesto – to do with the NHS – earlier this week. The response of Chamberlain Forum members to it – and to David Cameron’s proposal to ringfence health spending so far has been lukewarm. Chris Wadhams: ‘The commitment to target NHS extra spending on poorer [...]

January 8, 2010 | Posted in Opinion | Read More »

What We Do

Chamberlain Forum helps civil society and local authorities to coproduce better places to live. We are non-profit, politically independent and proudly based in Birmingham.

We organise Chamberlain Lectures featuring speakers including Prime Minister David Cameron. We also organise Resident University - a peer and shared learning programme for people who live and work in neighbourhoods.

We promote and develop community networks as social capital builders, including by supporting Community Network 4 Birmingham

We support action to strengthen local civil society including through: community asset transfers; neighbourhood websites; mediation and facilitation; training and business planning.

We organise action research into aspects of coproduction and are delivering an 18 month programme, Communities Managing Change, funded by Barrow Cadbury Trust.

Chamberlain Forum Limited acts as a consultancy delivering a wide range of 'thinking and doing' services for clients including local authorities, housing associations, development trusts, health and social care bodies, local strategic partnerships and voluntary and community groups.