Over 100 days in the heart of the first COVID crisis, the learning community to build back better in the days after worked together to try to make sense of things. Over 120 people who care about citizen and community outcomes came together to learn together. Organisations and spaces they came from included housing associations, charities, health, police, local and central government. And a really interesting smattering of international people, transformational linguists, systems and complexity thinkers.

The journey of the group has included:

• focus on ‘what will we face in the days after’ – appreciating the multivarious and overlapping challenges scenario development to consider the possibilities of what will result… which was not immediately inspiring
• open space development of key focus areas – from new forms of leadership, to the revolutionising of adult social care commissioning
• digging into the scenarios and asking ‘what do we want our new future to be’?
• third horizon thinking to consider what potential realities we can spot and seek to bring through into the new world identifying the prospects for radical rebuilding in the days after, and developing a full vision on ‘what we want to be valued’ in the days after
• identifying barriers to the achievement of the vision – and how we can model and share these values, and the shared collaborative learning process which led to them
• along with ‘spin-off’ events on post-crisis communications, ‘five worlds’ for place-based working, and deep engagement – connecting, reflecting, sensemaking

This session will pick up the threads of ongoing connections and learning from our community, develop our connections and welcome new members, and lead into the key Government After Shock questions:

• What do we need to leave behind?
• What do we want to keep?
• What should we do differently?