Proudly championing our DIPPS work with Dorset Council

27th March 2025

Dorset Council have been shining a light on the work of the Dorset Integrated Prevention Partnership today.

Help and Kindness have two contracts to contribute services to this Partnership.

Dorset's Community Response

We run our Community Connectors service which is called Dorset's Community Response. This is a supported signposting service that enables people to contact us to find local support when they need it. 

We research and gather information about all kinds of services in all sectors and all places across Dorset - from social clubs to fitness groups, mental health to sport and culture, ecology to hobbies, health services and employment support. We're approaching 13,000 listings in our database.

The Community Response isn't just accessed online. You can meet us in person when we're out and about, or phone us on 01305 59 59 58. You can talk to one of our lovely team members who can offer in person help to find what you're looking for.

We also take calls and emails from people who want to offer their support, tell us about the services they offer, and we help promote their work wherever we can, sometimes linking them to projects that really need the support they can provide.

Micro Providers of Care and Wellbeing Services

Our second contract within the DIPPs partnership is to nurture and develop a network of Micro Providers of care and wellbeing services across Dorset. These are self-employed people who can provide help and support to people at home. Some offer personal care services, others provide domestic support, carer respite, chaperoning, companionship, and more.

We welcome new people to the Micro Providers Network every week and draw on their support to provide help to people who contact us needing the kinds of services they provide.

We are deeply proud of these services and the impact they have on people who contact us. Not only do the Micros provide a huge amount of support to people across Dorset, but the network provides a livelihood for local people who want to work locally and provide support in their local communities.

This afternoon the Dorset's Community Response team received their 5,300th request for help, and more arrive every day. 

We've helped tackle loneliness, find emergency food and finance, find places for people to dance and sing, opportunities to learn and make friends, and so much more.

It is incredibly rewarding and humbling to run these services and we're grateful for the support of Dorset Council's investment in these projects.

Here at Help and Kindness our mission is to make it easier to "give help, find help, and work together". Both of these projects are tremendous exemplars of this simple aim.

You can read Dorset Council's story about the DIPPs partnership here.

The DIPPs Partnership comprises, Help and Kindness, The Lantern Trust, Shelter, First Point, and Volunteer Centre Dorset.