Local Level - resolving community issues

A new essay by Kevin Harris, using the history and social meaning of picnic to explore understandings of 'community' will be published by Local Level in November 2011.

Picnic: order, ambiguity and community, with illustrations by Gemma Orton, is being published using the innovative Bookleteer format. It will be available for sale through this site shortly. For more information please go to our Picnic page.

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.