The Place of Community

As part of the review of community development in Adur and Worthing we need to raise the profile of community development practice to ensure its survival at a time of cutbacks. This means we need be able to demonstrate the importance of community development to public bodies and to voluntary organisations and as well as to communities.

We are seeking examples of your work and suggestions for case studies which would indicate what community development offers and what might happen if there was no such support to communities and community organisations – for example what extra demand public bodies would have to pick up if community groups stopped providing services.

We have broadly grouped the impact of community developed into these following areas – if you have any examples of CD practice that relates to these could you write a little about it and cut and paste into an email to adurworthing@sostenga.org.uk. Or if you email us first we can send you word document to use. There is space at the end for other suggestions you have which don’t fit these groupings

Please return to adurworthing@sostenga.org.uk. Thanks for your time.

The areas we have grouped together are:

Communities having a voice in the development of key strategies and policies;for example Sustainable Community Strategy, Local Area Agreementss, Local development frameworks, Local Neighbourhood Improvement Areas:

Communities contributing to the design and delivery of public services -links to all the Duty to Involve requirements for long term engagement and not just one off consultations:

Community consultation and participation exercises to identify local needs:

Community organisations providing services to their local communities, which is they were not provided would lead to increased demand on public bodies such as health authorities, the police:

Work on community cohesion; addressing tensions within and between communities of place and interests:

Supporting communities and their representatives to have a stronger voice and be confident at representing their communities needs and interests:

Partnership working – supporting staff in public bodies as well as community members to work effectively in partnerships such as LSPs:

Providing support to councillors – to be effective at representing their communities needs, helping with the community / councillor calls for action:

Supporting sustainable community groups and organisations:

Enabling public bodies to evidence how they are meeting the NIs – probably 1-7 and particularly NI4, (and others chosen by A&W):

Your name and contact details – so we can mail or call you and talk through any of your case study ideas etc

A new start for Community Development:
The Adur & Worthing Service Review 2009.
A draft framework:

1. Background.

2. Scope and timeline of the Review.

3. Membership of the Review Team

4. Purpose & aims:

• To define Community Development using the new National Occupational Standards as a baseline guide.

• To clearly identify broad based Adur & Worthing priorities and in particular the contribution the Council can make to meet those priorities. Do we need to be more specific about the priorities that relate to communities or assume that all their priorities should be to their citizens ?

• To demonstrate the added value and key contribution of community development to implementing policies and hitting key areas in certain areas such as empowerment activity in Adur & Worthing.

• In relation to CD, the Review needs to identify firstly the work being undertaken by CD practitioners: who is doing what and where and why; people, projects and activity. Secondly the Review needs to identify other local practitioners, groups and organisations who are undertaking activity which contributes to the overall aims of CD as described above. Finally the Review should identify links to other allied activity outside of the direct responsibility of Adur & Worthing.

• To identify the differing historical, current and future needs and aspirations across the area.

• Identify links to other policies and strategies.

• To involve partners across the public, voluntary, community and private sectors in the whole review process.

5. Action Planning: There needs to be 2 Action Plans. Firstly a Plan for carrying out the Review and secondly an Action Plan to progress the Review itself including the identification of timescales, resources, local good practice and outcomes.

6. Process for evaluation and review.