Local Level - resolving community issues

Local Level has begun some preliminary community engagement work with residents in West Ealing, London, as part of a consortium with Playlink and Rethinking Cities. The work has been commissioned by A2Dominion housing, in view of significant anticipated regeneration funding for the area.

In this initial phase, we’ll be organising a walk around the neighbourhoods with resident activists, followed a couple of weeks later by a second walk involving both activists and stakeholder-influencers, which will terminate in a facilitated meeting exploring options and possibilities for change.

We’re hoping that the process will create a culture in which it feels legitimate (not to say routine) for local people to come up with ideas readily and pursue them with appropriate support – especially in arts and social enterprise – with less likelihood that their initiative will be quashed by officials. In our view, this should be how community engagement practice really develops now, in an age where the local implementation of policy comes to be based more on consent and permission than decree from above.

We have been asked by East Sussex youth participation team to carry out an evaluation of a Young Inspectors scheme. They have been working with eight young people with a range of disabilities and disadvantages, who have been trained and carried out inspections of public buildings and a park. The national (Youth4U) programme was developed by the National Children’s Bureau between 2009 and 2011 and their evaluation published last year.

From one side, the young inspectors programme is about improving local services through young people’s participation in service evaluation. From the young people’s point of view, it can be about genuine participation, respect, self-confidence and a set of ‘employability skills’ such as communicating, presenting information and teamwork. Read Amy’s story as an example.

In addition, Local Level will be helping the Equality and Participation team with some of their own development, and supporting our friends at Breslin Public Policy in an evaluation and promotion of the team’s ‘Big Vote’ youth cabinet exercise. Some of this work begins immediately, and will run through until May 2012.

On 23 November Kevin Harris and Martin Dudley ran a lunchtime seminar for the University of Leicester's School of Museum Studies, on our work with museums and young people looked after, following our report earlier this year.

Our study found consistent, sustained benefits for young people in the innovative projects we observed. Yesterday we emphasised the need to research and develop the argument and business case for museum services, and to call for political support for programmes of engagement with young people looked after.

We have continued to work with street reps in Shipley, Bradford after earlier help to develop the work of a group of street reps in Windhill.

Working closely with members of the Windhill group we have developed a new web site for them. This has now been launched, and has the potential to be extended to cover the activities of street reps across the Shipley area.

With Council services being re-structured, the work of the independent street reps seems more and more important; the new web site will allow sharing of news and information and highlight what has been achieved.

Following the response to our report on museum-based activities with young people looked after, we have been asked to give two more presentations.

The first was at the Group for Education in Museums conference in Norwich in early September where Kevin Harris spoke alongside two practitioners.

In November, Martin Dudley and Kevin Harris will lead a seminar at the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester.   

Following the rioting and looting in English cities in August, the Guardian's Joe Public blog published an article by Kevin Harris and Hugh Flouch examining the ways people used social media at a local level to share information, reassure one another, contain rumour and misinformation, and begin the healing process. The piece argues that local sites like Harringay Online, which is close to Tottenham where the disturbances began, quietly fulfilled the kind of role that politicians call for - validating information and making it public, urging calmness, and helping to mobilise the subsequent response.

A short report to Watford Council for Voluntary Service, following a short strategic review we carried out for them, has been published.

Kevin Harris spoke at a seminar on 'the good society in our neighbourhoods' at the Compass conference, in London; and at the CILIP (librarians) 'Umbrella' conference in Hatfield, on neighbourhood online networks.

As part of the Networked Neighbourhoods group, Kevin Harris has begun work in three localities in England to support the development of neighbourhood online websites. These projects are funded by the Big Lottery. A fourth, similar project, funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, has begun in collaboration with Wolverhampton Homes.

Meanwhile, Martin Dudley is working with the Shipley Area Corordinator in Bradford to support street reps and neighbourhood wardens to develop a website.

Kevin Harris gave two presentations on Local Level's evaluation of museum activities for young people looked after, at the Education Matters Conference, hosted by Norfolk's Virtual School for Children in Care.

The Guardian's voluntary sector network has published an article by Kevin Harris on asset based community development (ABCD). The piece notes the emerging potential of community development in UK social policy, and anticipates the contribution of ABCD because of its emphasis on existing skills, energy and resources in neighbourhoods. However, some questions remain because of perceptions that politically less palatable factors, especially external forces like economic decline, weak public services, or inequalities, are screened out of the menu of options for local activists. A further discussion can be found on the Neighbourhoods blog.