I head up the cross disciplinary Centre for Citizenship and Community at University of Central Lancashire.  Building on the findings of the Connected Communities programme (2013-15), a collaboration with the Royal Society of Arts and the LSE, we are looking in practical ways at how the value of social networks as assets can support wellbeing, citizenship, capacity (and cost efficiency) in local communities and across public policy areas: health, young people, social isolation, housing, policing. We call this 'community capital' which makes sense to the local people who we recruit and train to be researchers of their own communities; for whom this engagement itself can be transformational. Supporting communities in re-visualising who they are to each other underscores the value of particpation and the potential value for public services of local co-design and involvement in delivery when service professionals bring to their roles a 'literacy of community'.