Helen Ball

Friends of Norris Green Park brings people together through environmental volunteering and park-based activities, to create community bonds and intergenerational friendships.

Helen has spent 18 years working in social housing, economic development and regeneration. In her fifties, Helen moved back to the area she’d grown up in, and didn’t know anyone – but through Norris Green Park, she’s got to know 300 people in her community. She wants to extend that same opportunity for connection to other people.

Helen has identified parks as key spaces in building connection in local communities, particularly during the Covid recovery. During the pandemic, community spirit flourished, and Helen wants to harness this into a more formal local network, fostering new community-led approaches to tackle neighbourhood problems, and replicating the successful community bonds that Friends of Norris Green Park has forged through its model to other parks in Liverpool – and beyond.

Helen applied to the Multiplier programme for the opportunity to invest more time and energy into Norris Green Park; to expand her vision with a mentor; and to build a coalition with fellow grassroots leaders who shared her commitment to creating better connected communities.

In our disconnected age, The Cares Family is passionate about creating space for people of all ages to come together and share time, stories and experiences. Helen shares this vision and was selected to be a Multiplier to inspire others to see parks the way she sees them – ‘community centres without a roof.’