Social scaffolding: Supporting the development of positive social identities and agency in communities

This poem, by the Irish poet and Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney, is as applicable to sustaining healthy communities as it is to sustaining marital harmony, which is the purpose for which it was originally written. As the scaffolding provided the foundational structure from which Heaney and his wife built the walls of their marriage, so too we can develop communities through our own collective efforts, drawing on support from health and social care practitioners of various persuasions where and when required. Once it is established, we can gain confidence from the fact that we can use what we have built together to help our communities to endure and thrive when they, too, are threatened by adversity.