Researcher: Dave Wheeley
Email: d_s_wheeley @ yahoo.co.uk
Partnership Working
Partnership Working
Getting Started
In the first 6 to 8 weeks of the project, the first of the Community Cohesion Forum meetings was held. The Community Cohesion Forum meetings, five in all, were open to anyone with an interest in community cohesion issues and/or Leicester Pathfinder. The Forum provided opportunities to engage people in thinking about and working towards community cohesion and were attended by a range of professionals working in the city, providers and their members of staff, and people involved in community groups. Tough issues having the potential to split people and communities were brought to the Forum. For example, people expressed feelings about a perceived over-emphasis on race issues to the exclusion of other issues and the development of faith schools. Several people expressed a need for it to continue beyond the life of Pathfinder.
A Steering Group was set up, to support the development and progress of the project and providing a support forum for removing obstacles, resolving issues and taking strategic decisions. Some of the Steering Group members were also theme leaders – one point of contact responsible for the themes Media, Drama and Street Sports and Arts, and that of Conflict Resolution. The Steering Group shared reports and information about projects, all bringing different nuances to the group
The Steering Group was made up of the following
· Val Carpenter, NCBI & Leicester Community Cohesion Pathfinder Programme Manager Margaret Brough, NCBI
· Karl Brown, Sports Development
· Nicola Dalby, Community Champions
· Cheddi Gore, Race Equality Council
· Alex Kamanga, Youth Service
· Carol Varley, Voluntary Action Leicester
· Paul Vaughan, Lifelong Learning
· Robert Vincent, SDSA
· Hamza Vyani, Youth Voice
· Mike Williams, Youth Service
Common Links Shared by Projects
The Leicester Pathfinder projects highlighted within this CDRom were originally broken down into three themes (media, drama, street sports & arts), with another (conflict resolution) through which activities were delivered by and/or for young people to promote community cohesion, and as a means of breaking down barriers between different groups.
· Conflict Resolution Resolving Differences (in the East Midlands) was part of a national programme to deploy local community facilitators in areas at risk of public disorder. In Leicester, funding was received for community facilitation projects and a resource of skilled (voluntary) community facilitators were recruited, trained and supported so that they could increase community consultation with young people, residents groups, local businesses and faith communities. The Resolving Differences programme continued develop Friends Against Bullying teams in schools, and developing young people as Community Facilitators, building the skills to deliver training or to engage in consultation with other young people and to lead to better understanding between young people and the adult community, and differing cultural groups.
Utilising NCBI’s skills, a comprehensive range of people actively involved in delivering the activities of Leicester Pathfinder were trained in conflict resolution, welcoming diversity, myth busting and prejudice reduction skills. Some people received welcoming diversity and prejudice reduction skills training, whilst others would go on to be taught how to deliver that training, and to deal with 1-to-1 and group conflict resolution skills. 277 people (59 of whom went on to do the intensive training over 3 or 5 days) were trained in total.
· Drama Utilising the Leicester Haymarket Theatre’s youth inclusive drama programmes, and working in partnership with Leicester Arts in Education and the Schools Development Support Agency, three projects generated cross-cultural contact between young people (aged 14-19) in neighbourhood areas through multi-arts workshops, to challenge ideas around Place, Culture and Identity.
Material for the theatre was produced through writer, director, designer workshops that were initiated within schools as a collaboration between young people. Triplets of schools were partnered up to encourage pupils to work alongside pupils with a different background to themselves. E-learning networks were established to further promote contact and understanding between young people of different backgrounds, and a programme of drama and sports activities with gypsy and traveller young people explored cultural identity and provided opportunities for contact with other groups of young people across the city.
· Street Sports and Arts Leicester Race Equality Council and The City Council’s Sports Development Team joined in partnership to bring together young people on the margins of current provision, and Black and Minority Ethnic and White young people, in shared activity.
The objective was to build bridges between groups of young people based on their shared cultures and experiences through work in schools, youth facilities and work directly in the community by initiating neighbourhood and school based activities that build into multi-cultural and city-wide events. The culmination of all the above activities led to the Urban Games event (including BMXing, basketball, skateboarding, blading, street hockey, street cricket, football, dance, deejaying, scratching, rapping, and graffiti art), and celebrated the achievements made during the Pathfinder Programme. Also including drama and media themes, this provided an end focus for the process, involving all young people engaged in the Pathfinder Programme to practice and utilise their skills.
· Media - Working in partnership with the Leicester Mercury and Takeover Radio (led by and for young people) we built on the excellent reputation the local media have on community cohesion issues by providing opportunities for young people from deprived neighbourhoods to develop their communications skills and improve their employment prospects whilst promoting community cohesion, and being trained in journalistic and presentation skills.
Media partners provided the technical training and ongoing activities that enabled the participants to generate news items for radio, print and film that promoted community cohesion. Other media orientated projects delivered by Soft Touch Community Arts, Youth VOICE and the city council Advice Services facilitated dialogue between marginalised young people from different ethnic groups and areas of Leicester using audio and visual mediums to encourage mutual understanding and celebration of differences and commonalities. Each the projects then left a lasting legacy of video and other materials, including a best practice media toolkit for schools to promote good community relations.
How it worked
Whether the projects were aimed at providing platforms for different communities to meet through community activities, or addressing cohesion issues through delivery of community events, through myth busting, information or publicity campaigns, strong voluntary sector involvement was a key factor of the success. Partners brought additional expertise to the programmes, and a range of contacts at community level, connecting initiatives, and support and evaluation mechanisms. It is important to stress that even though there are considerable constraints on their resources, voluntary sector partners were vital to the success of community cohesion work on the ground, and therefore for the whole agenda. Leicester is unique in that because a local leadership development organisation (NCBI) already had a 15-year track record of delivery on community cohesion issues, the city council contracted out the development of the Pathfinder Action Plan and the management of the overall project management to an organisation in the voluntary sector.
As Pathfinder shaped up, providers were invited to be involved in new initiatives that were not anticipated at the time of writing the Action Plan. So whilst it was hoped that most providers would get involved in the 2 Beacon Open Days on community cohesion, the Forum meetings, the Urban Vibe day and even the Steering Group meetings, the reality was that most were unable to do so much of the time. This was in part due to the nature of project funding in voluntary organisations where there often isn’t the organisational capacity to involve themselves in non-project activities or activities which were not costed in at the time of applying for funds. It was also challenging for people from across the range of provider organisations to make or keep their Pathfinder project high enough on their agenda to enable them to participate as much as they may have wanted.
Continuity occasionally became an issue. Original partners at the time of the expression of interest (MATV and BBC Radio Leicester) were unable to proceed with their involvement, and membership of the Steering Group changed over time. Although eventually, this led to a Steering Group made up of practitioners which, although not actively intended at the beginning of the programme, led to a great deal of learning and an invaluable source of support.
The programme and its projects has been able to show that it is possible to establish common ground between apparently diverse groups, creating a source of optimism and inspiration. It has trained community facilitators, and both young people and adults in conflict resolution skills. Taking from the learning gathered by the Pathfinder Programme, schools in the city have now signed up to a document called ‘Collaborating to succeed’, which is about developing the idea of schools working together in clusters (linked up with other culturally different schools), and in which Community Cohesion has even been written in as a key principle. The Youth Service have built in a social inclusion strategy into the Youth Service Plan to implement changes that will develop the active involvement of young people, in the Youth Service’s future development.
The concept of community cohesion has widespread applicability and can undoubtedly help to develop sustainable communities in areas where potential tension and conflict exists. In Leicester, the Pathfinder Community Cohesion Programme has communicated positive messages about community cohesion to a wider audience. Although this is a challenge for any initiative, our projects have managed to stimulate contact and debate between groups that might not otherwise have any opportunity to meet, through events, information, and work with the local media, raising awareness of the community cohesion agenda.