The Place of Community

We ended Day 1, in true community development style, by asking what people wanted to see happen in Day 2, so we could prepare relevant material. Here’s what you said:

How to overcome barriers

Details of techniques and when to use them

Joint Local Strategic Partnership – what are they? Understand structure. How to get Community Development embedded?

Understand Adur and Worthing ‘merging’? Implications for communities?

James offered an overview of Adur and Worthing joint council working.

Issues relating to partnership working regarding changing situations

Future for Community Development in this area – engagement with public bodies/ communities/ CD practitioners

Action plan for this group

To see what happened next… have a look at the Category pages for:

Training: understanding the place of community day 2

At the start of the day we had introduced Jill Harris from South East Planning Aid as our Keynote Listener. She had kindly agreed to take on this role of moving around the different groups during the day and listening for emerging themes, and summarising the day at the end. Some of her reflections were as follows:

The jargon is too much for people.

You need good, clear information and it helps to have some knowledge of the government background to what is happening.

A defining role is that of elected local representatives – some embrace community engagement, some are more defensive. We need to understand this.

Need to inform people to engage them. Also, people will listen to those they trust.

What is a ’stakeholder’, and how do we understand them?

Need to be creative.

And be ongoing – need to plan how to keep a community involved, over years.

Need to break down bigger issues to what it means to people. People can be NIMBYS if threatened – need to also see opportunities.

Shoreham Harbour seen from the air

What is the scope for community engagement in this scenario?

Very challenging if to be done properly. But there is a lot of scope and need to develop community, hence this could provide an opportunity anyway.

What’s the aim / objective/purpose of this planned engagement?

To try to ensure that local people benefit fully from and influence any development strongly

What level of engagement are you wanting / offering?

Development officers to work with communities. Ongoing and long term engagement.

Who do you want to work with / engage / network?

Local residents and groups. Influence the strategy. Identify these more clearly as for list at the top. Stakeholder analyses needed.

Where might you go to obtain contacts?

CVS, local authorities, parish councils.

How will you negotiate with stakeholders about the process and approach you would like to take with this work?

We would like to begin from principle and build upwards. Keep a clear distinction between community development and marketing. Consider very carefully before taking on any contracts or funding.

What resources can you offer?

Time and hosting space.

What role(s) are you expecting voluntary organisations or community groups to take on?

Collectively to engage with the needs of their areas, work together more closely, and engage in the process very assertively.

What diversity and equality issues are relevant to this work?

Engagement with a diverse and rather fragmented community.

What barriers and problems will you have to be aware of?

Building real community involvement and interest in the issue, facilitating this, offering resources, training and support to small local groups. Obtaining significant political influence.

Summarise the principles that underpin this approach

Any changes should offer definite and measurable benefits to local residents.

We spent some time in the sun after lunch talking about Community Development processes and how they are based on values and principles. We spent some time talking about these values and emphasising those that held more importance for some of us – like understanding the communities we worked in, or creativity.

Values of Community Development Work

Social Justice
Working towards a fairer society that respects civil
and human rights and challenges oppression

Self-determination
Individuals and groups have the right to identify shared
issues and concerns as the starting point for collective
action

Working and Learning together
Valuing and using the skills, knowledge, experience and
diversity within communities to collectively bring about
desired changes

Sustainable Communities
Empowering communities to develop their independence
and autonomy whilst making and maintaining links to the
wider society

Participation
Everyone has the right to fully participate in the decision-making processes
that affect their lives

Reflective Practice
Effective community development is informed and
enhanced through reflection on action

In small groups we thought about planned work or activities we were involved in. Using the blank mini-ladders we tried to plot the actual steps taken in that piece of work so far. These were then placed on a map representing the geographical areas of Adur and Worthing.

We looked at everyone’s ladders on the map and discussed as a whole group the different approaches people had taken.

Some people were unhappy with the ladder analogy and preferred to talk about continuums or cycles of participation. The two  ladders at the bottom of this picture, in the middle shows a cycle of participation. The ladder to the bottom left shows steps on the ladder being used, but constantly taking a step back before moving up to the next step. So the concepts of monitoring and reviewing were included.

This exercise led people to ask more about practical techniques for engagement.

We started with a brief chat about the Duty to Involve legislation and and how it talks about Local Authorities having to

provide information – consult – involve in other ways

These three steps are essentially a simplified version of research carried out about different levels and kinds of engagement/participation since the 1960s. One of the earliest was produced by Shelly Arnstein in 1969 known as the ladder of citizen participation, based on US experiences. This original concept has been developed over time by different authors and applied to the UK situation. Wilcox wrote one in 1995 which many council officers find useful as it was written from the perspective of planners.

Some Local Authorities are happy to just go with the Duty to Involve definition of:

provide information – consult – involve in other ways

with the lack of detail this involves enabling them to say, “Well, we already distribute a newsletter, so that covers all three”. Other LAs have taken it further. For example, in Kirklees, West Yorkshire, they interpret the Duty to Involve as:

inform – consult – collaborate – empower

which is a lot closer to the original ‘ladders of participation’, such as Wilcox, below:

Wilcox – Guide to Effective Participation

Level	Type of participation	Explanation
5	Supporting independent community initiatives	Means helping others to develop and carry out their own plans; resource providers may put limits on these plans.
4	Acting together	May involve short term collaboration of the forming of more permanent partnerships
3	Deciding together	It can mean giving power to people to choose without sharing the responsibility for carrying decisions through; begs the question if everyone has equal influence
2	Consultation	Offering some choices about what is going to happen – but not to develop own ideas
1	Information	Underpins all other levels but offers no involvement – ‘take it or leave it’

Hear by Right

Inevitably every time a model is produced it gets adapted to different situations and some additional sections are added or subtracted.

For example, in Hear by Right – about the engagement of Local Authorities with young people – they create a spectrum with 5 positions

Hear by Right – setting standards for active involvement of young people in democracy. Published by the LGA www.lga.gov.uk and NYA www.nya.org.uk

We looked a bit at what communities are. In small groups we chatted about communities we personally relate to, and also communities which we realte to (or need to) for our work and activities. We wrote down the different communities that are relevant to us on post-it notes.

These were then loosely grouped together:

• Geographical communities, like East Worthing, the streets where I live, neighbours, locality community groups
• Communities of Interest, extending beyond geographical boundaries, like refugee and migrant, faith, work community, health community champions
• We also talked about communities of Identity that can come together to challenge a power inequality, like environmental campaigners

We worked a lot in small groups

We also talked about how communities are complex and dynamic entities subject to constant change and emphasis as the needs of its members are met and replaced by new and emerging needs and issues.

Other communities mentioned were: boatyards, sports clubs, parents, virtual and internet communities, mums, partners and family, community development practitioners and trainers, voluntary sector groups, Southlanders, urban and rural.

• How to have joined up working
• What makes partnerships effective
• Networking: what’s going on
• Definitions: community, empowerment, engagement
• How to ask local people what they want/share information
• Bottom up approaches
• Fresh start for community development across area
• Sustainable practice
• Talked about feeling like being in between grassroots and policy makers, like an hour glass, but on its side

Understanding Community in Adur and Worthing

Day 1 – Southwick Community Centre



Introducing the first day

Morning

Arrivals and refreshments, signing in

Welcome from John Stevens, aims of the day

Domestics, introduce keynote listener, group agreement

What people want from the days and what they are bringing to the days

Putting things in context: community - engagement – involvement,
Duty to Involve legislation

Looking at communities people personally relate to and work in,
relating in more detail to Duty to Involve, and mapping against ladders of participation

Afternoon
Looking at what community development is, the values and principles behind CD

Sharing good practice in terms of implementing Duty to Involve

Applying work so far to case studies – option to work on case studies we bring along,
or relate to real or planned work in the areas

Key learning points from case studies

Keynote listener feedback

Responses to keynote listener

Brief planning ahead for second day

Evaluation of the day