By Ima Miah, CEO, Asian Resource Centre of Croydon (ARCC), Abundance Project Community Research Hub.
Earlier this month, we had the privilege of presenting at Civil Service Live 2025 in London, invited by the Cabinet Office Behavioural Science Team to contribute to the theme of Building Public Trust. Over two busy days, my colleague Mamun Khan (Programme Manager at ARCC) and I delivered three sessions to more than 500 civil servants from across government.
Our focus was on community-led solutions and the power of co-production, particularly through our work on The Abundance Project, part of UKRI’s national programme on mobilising community assets to address health inequalities. As a grassroots organisation rooted in Croydon’s diverse Asian communities, ARCC has long witnessed how public trust is eroded when services are inaccessible, culturally unaware, or fail to follow through. But we’ve also seen how trust can be rebuilt through empathy, partnership, and patience.
The Abundance Project embodies this. It’s a collaboration between community organisations, the health sector, and the arts, designed to address the inequitable experiences of mental health care faced by marginalised groups. Through a co-produced and multidisciplinary approach, it centres community voice in service design, particularly among groups who have historically felt overlooked.
At Civil Service Live, we shared insights from our project’s findings including the risks posed by competitive short-term funding, top-down service planning, and the ongoing lack of cultural sensitivity in mainstream provision. Our message was clear: trust isn’t built through outreach alone; it’s earned through consistent, co-created action.
The response was overwhelmingly positive. Civil servants engaged thoughtfully with the challenges and asked how they could better support local organisations. Many expressed an interest in volunteering with community groups and rethinking how they engage seldom-heard voices in their work.
For the Abundance Project, this was a powerful opportunity to show how behavioural science, and grassroots experience can come together to shape more human, inclusive public services. It was also a reminder that change happens when those at the centre of decision-making listen deeply and act.
As one attendee put it, “You’ve reminded us that community trust isn’t a ‘nice-to-have’; it’s the foundation of good governance.”