About Life in Community 

Life in Community C.I.C was founded in 2019 and incorporated in February 2020, after Kelly Cranston (founder) stepped down as Chair from Tibby Residents Association. 

Being born and raised on the Tibbington Estate, following the completion of her degree, Kelly felt it was imperative to give back to her local community and help raise their aspirations. 

For over 10 years, Kelly and a team of local resident volunteers were involved in improving geographical area of the Tibbington Estate (Tibby) in the ward of Princes End of Tipton. During that period, Kelly and the team worked tirelessly to deliver services for the local community, which included youth work, education and employment support and training as well as offering signposting services for local people.
  
Kelly became increasingly aware that the structure of the TRA was not fit for purpose, in order to access the required resources, that were necessary to address the social issues in the area. She wanted to create transformational change and positive outcomes across the neighbourhood and felt that setting up a Community Interest Company (Social Enterprise), was the best way in achieving this. Not only for a small area but for the ward as a whole.   

Kelly has a wealth of experience managing programmes involving children and young people and has worked for a number of  charities and within secondary education. More recently Kelly developed a health and wellbeing programme in Birmingham for those  suffering with low-level mental health.

Pat Willamson is also a Director alongside Kelly and has lived in the Princes End area for most of her life and has worked as a volunteer for many years in Tipton (and elsewhere), seeking to improve life outcomes in a deprived area which had few community facilities and employment opportunities. However,  these areas had a great community spirit. 

Pat found disabilities and deprivation around her all through her life and it has gave her a heart to encourage, motivate and facilitate people to achieve the best for their lives. She wholeheartly, believes that strong communities are built on caring, sharing relationships where each person is valued and respected and able to access and try out things without fear, and where no-one is isolated; but rather all are included. Her volunteering has included Youth work, Children’s work, running a Parent & Toddler group, all within different churches. She has also assisted a child with SEN in primary school; been a treasurer for her local TRA; volunteering with a local ‘Listeners’ group, the Education & Business partnership and also for Youth and Children’s clubs, within a church setting.

Independently, Pat  set up study groups for women, and has also run dance workshops for women and girls, to encourage, teach new skills, empower and motivate. Formally her employed positions included: working in local High Schools, in both SEN Learning Support and as a Learning Mentor, and within the NHS in an admin role. She has also worked for the Local Authority as a Local Learning Champion (within the community). Her strengths include being a  trained counsellor, having skills in active listening, mentoring, financial (SMBC trained) and admin/clerical.

Prior to working as a Local Learning Champion she accessed lots of community based classes. She learned a lot from them and this, together with voluntary work, meant confidence was built to engage in this role, which entailed talking to people in the Tipton community and engaging them with learning, both formal and informal; and also setting up community-based courses with providers. She learned first-hand how valuable having access to courses (e.g. life skills, well-being, employment and education based opportunities) within the community is, and why ‘Life in Community’ is very much needed now.