Wigan Council have become known for doing things differently.
Through their 'Deal' - in which the Council and citizens agree ways they can work better together - they have made a huge move towards adopting strengths based working:
"It's all about having conversations with residents to better understand what they can do, rather than what they can't do"
As Nesta have recently said - there is a paradox that many services and social programmes that intend to help people, actually erode confidence rather than build it.
The vision at Wigan Borough is to create a confident place with confident people and that's something Bromford also believe in.
Wigan and Bromford are fairly unusual as they are putting more money and resources into the community - at a time when most organisations are cutting back. Why? Because both have evidence to show that focussing on what's strong in communities (rather than just on what's wrong) has beneficial social and financial outcomes.
How can we design services that build confidence? That was one of the topics of discussion when Yvonne Campbell and some of her team visited today.
We also discussed the balance between exploration, discovery and the implementation focus of project management.
Wigan are doing some amazing work - and on a very similar journey to us - we'll continue to keep in touch and share our successes (and failures) as we tread new ground.
Oh , and Wigan really know how to bring treats...the guys brought us sweets, Wigan branded goodies, Uncle Joe's Mint Balls, AND their famous meat pies. They've set the new bar for visitors!