Photo by Podnosh

Over the last six months Podnosh have trained several groups of people in social reporting – using video, audio and other social media to objectively report what’s happening in communities, at events or meetings and to quickly publish this information on the web.

If you’ve been part of the training – through Every Voice Counts, the Black Country Take Part Pathfinder program or with Birmingham Neighbourhood Forums – then we’ve sent you an email.

It’s offering you the chance to win one of four Flip cameras bought as part of the Every Voice Counts programme. The aim of the training and these cameras was to create a legacy of community groups, active citizens and even council officers empowered to use the web for civic good.

So if you received one of these emails please write a social blog post whereever you think is fit and link your post to this one. We’ll read the posts and pass on the cameras to four groups or people.

What do we mean by “social”? Need some ideas on what to write about? You might want to look at:

• What makes the web social?
• 8 things you can blog about in civic activity

The closing date is Friday 20^th May 2011. Remember to include a link to this post.

Good luck and we look forward to reading your posts. Everyone will get mentioned here once the decision has been made (the posts will be judged by Nick Booth, owner of Podnosh and Denise Taylor from RAWM) – and we’ll explain why we chose the posts we did.

So four Flip cameras to help you hold power to account or reflect what going on in your neighbourhood or your community.

RAWM – the vibrant, passionate and strategic support agency for the voluntary and community sector in the West Midlands – is pleased to announce that it is continuing to support the sector as we enter the new financial year 2011–12.

In what is a transition year for RAWM, 2011–12 will provide opportunities to GetConnected, StayConnected and BeConnected with the voluntary and community sector through RAWM via a number of digital platforms.

Sharon Palmer, RAWM’s Chief Executive Officer said:

“RAWM will continue to keep the sector updated on all the latest news, events, resources and discussions around voice, influence and engagement. If you have something to say we want to ‘hear’ your tweets!  Alternatively, you can contact us by email, fax, phone or post – we’re still around and we’re planning on staying!  RAWM will still be here specialising in facilitating sector voice, supporting sector influence and delivering sector engagement.”

Download the full report (pdf, 229kb)

Working in partnership with Staffordshire County Council this project aimed for varied outcomes: empowering people as a means of giving them choice and using the focus on personalisation as a means of bringing organisations up to speed so that they can thrive in the new environment.

This focus reflected a concern that support services would be lost and the empowerment that personalisation was meant to bring to individuals would not be realised.

Activities undertaken by the project

Awareness raising events

Explaining personalisation to all sizes of organisations and highlighting the need for organisations to work in a different way in the future. These were followed up by a series of training sessions covering subjects such as:

• Marketing of Services
• Costing of services and financial management
• Person Centred Planning
• Collaborative Working

The outcome: organisations put together action plans and worked with local development workers to progress them.

Collaborative working meetings

Where different models of collaborative working were explored.

The outcome: an agreed structure that will help support the competitiveness of organisations to ensure a good variety of service providers moving forward into the future.

A listening event

Where over 50 service users, carers and providers were engaged to discuss the support they would need in being able to fully benefit from the greater opportunity personalisation of servicers offers to them.

The outcome: the collated feedback from the event has been shared with the local authority to influence the support that is provided for individuals to make full use of the opportunities available to them.

Related links

• Download this post as a Word doc (262kb)
• Staffordshire TSEPI Project Final Report (doc, 266kb)

A partnership project, linked to Connecting Communities Programme, led by Sandwell MBC with Friar Park in Wednesbury, and Oakham Church in Rowley Regis.

The project had two strands which focussed on Young People and their families. The areas in the project were characterised by significant, intense social and economic problems, drug and alcohol abuse and the families were classed as hard to engage.

Sandwell Local Authority partnered with locally based community and voluntary groups who were able to exploit existing contacts and put in the extra work needed.

Activities undertaken by the project

Media Project

Working with disengaged youth by using ICT and social media as a means of engagement and expression the project explored issues of diversity and community cohesion. The project also worked on confidence building.

Skills for employment

A focus on young fathers and young families. Working with Dudley College to run locally based courses for literacy, numeracy and information technology. Intense personal support was provided and informal work undertaken on personal and neighbourhood issues.

Outcomes:

• Participants undertook a journey from being disengaged to being able to participate in supporting others through mentoring, supporting the youth club, working with volunteering organisations and joining a media course.
• Improved employment prospects from greater confidence, improved CV with volunteering experience and literacy and numeracy qualifications.

The Project’s added value

• The Youth Voice element of the project supported the development of ways to express ideas, ask “the powers that be” questions and to express their concerns.
• The partnership work between the local authority, the college of further education and the voluntary sector has built  trust and has enabled lasting continuity which will feed into future projects.
• Building the capacity of the community by increasing participation and providing volunteering opportunities.
• Improving the links between Local voluntary groups, education and the local authority.

Related links

• Sandwell Youth empowerment and worklessness case study (doc, 299kb)
• Target Support Fund Sandwell – Final Report (doc, 352kb)

Read the case study evaluation (doc, 389kb)

Deelands Tenants Hall is currently owned by the City Council and funded through the Northfield Constituency’s Community Development budget. This budget incorporated costs for utilities, rates and small scale repair and maintenance work. The hall is located on the Cock Hill Estate within one of Birmingham City Council’s 31 priority neighbourhoods. With the lack of an active third sector within and around the estate, the 2009-2011 Neighbourhood Management Plan identified the hall as the key vehicle for local community regeneration through consultation and engagement. Currently, the hall has very limited community use (on average 5 hours per week).

The hall’s facilities include an indoor hall, office, music studio, garden area and multi use games areas (not floodlit).

Aim

The aim of this project was to engage with local residents and increase community use of the hall which meets the needs of local residents and is sustainable financially.

Proposal

To achieve the aim, a third sector organisation entitled Ugly Bugs was to be recruited to deliver the project activity detailed below.In addition, a succession plan was to be developed in partnership with the City Council and other interested parties.

Project activity

Over a 60 week period, this organisation was tasked to:

• Organise 4 community fun days, to provide activities for local residents and to consult and engage with local residents.
• Maintain an on site presence for 2 days per week and undertake outreach work to consult and engage with residents regarding demand for services etc….
• Promote the programme of activities via outreach work.
• Attract user groups (e.g. Rainbow/Brownie/Scouts groups, Slimming clubs, stop smoking sessions) and set up a key holder system which will allow these groups to access the building independently.
• Develop new activities (e.g. play, exercise to music).
• Develop and review health and safety and risk assessment procedures

Update on the project

A newsletter has been produced and distributed to the 700 homes on the Cockhill estate.  Residents have been engaged via the newsletter and a newly set up email address and text service.

Three separate families are now involved on the ‘Deelands Working Party’ afternoon.  They have offered help with gardening, painting and cleaning. 5 local residents have signed up to take part in the Play Training course. A resident has put forward a new idea for a group for carers that is being developed. A female resident has volunteered to help with a new Domestic Violence programme which has been set up at the hall in conjunction with PCO Hadley.

Residents have become involved in other activities which will provide support for further engagement and capacity building including – 2 families have registered their interest in a new Rainbow group by using the Deelands text service. Two mums have expressed interest in the Stay and Play sessions advertised in the newsletter. The half term holiday activity programme in February has seen 29 children and young people on its first day of delivery.  This increased to 39 on Day 2.  8 children booked using the newly set up Deelands text service.

Deelands Hall Project – Building Social Capital evaluation (doc, 242kb)

The term ‘co-production’ was coined originally at the University of Indiana in the 1970s when Professor Elinor Ostrom was asked to explain to the Chicago police why the crime rate went up when the police came off the beat and into patrol cars. She used the term as a way of explaining why the police need the community as much as the community need the police.

This project looked at Public Services as almost anything we do which depends on other people. The project set out to explore and highlight cases in the West Midlands region, looking at the old NI 4 authorities and interpreting past experience through round table discussions.

Activities undertaken by the project

Action Research Workshops

Engaging with individuals and groups who have responsibility for a public service or who is dependent on a public service (potentially everybody). The programme was about learning and challenging how service stakeholders think. In particular, councillors and officers, service managers and community groups who can deliver or design a service. Working with Community Hubs and Community Centres as natural places where practitioners and stakeholders gather.

Outcomes:

• Add to the pool of people for whom co-production is demystified.
• Build confidence among stakeholders.
• Challenge the policy status quo – who should be working with whom.

The project disseminated the results of this activity by organising a conference for sharing experience and the production of a final report.

The Project’s added value

• Funding has enabled activity to be spread, expanding on work begun with Birmingham neighbourhoods into the Black Country.
• Improve the confidence of community hubs.
• Tackling the idea of dependency, grant recipients who believe that nothing is possible without a grant when the value of the service is greater than the grant.
• Developing a method for valuation because effective markets don’t exist.

Related links

• Download this Chamberlain Forum case study (doc, 127kb)
• Coproduction in Practice: 6 Case Studies of Coproduction in the West Midlands (pdf, 184kb)

A twelve session programme aimed at BAME women across the city, the programme was designed to bring together women from diverse communities to encourage them, inspire them and to equip them to take part in and influence decision making processes.

The programme proposal entailed training, support and mentoring for women around issues of citizenship, personal development and social transformation. Women were given the opportunity to gain the skills, knowledge and confidence to increase their participation in community activity and in influencing the decisions that affect them.  The programme was underpinned by community development values and utilised the approach of the ALAC initiative (Active Learning for Active Citizenship) now known as the Take Part framework www.takepart.org.

Read the full Birmingham Women Take Part Evaluation Report (doc, 266kb)

Activities undertaken by the projects

Young Residents University

Undertaken with the Chamberlain Forum and seven Young Persons organisations from across the city known for existing good practice. The project held a series of workshops where groups of young people discussed “meaty” issues such as diversity and how decision making can be changed. At the final session the young people’s experience was fed back to key decision makers (councillors and senior officers), these in turn leading to separate meetings, a different way of working with Young People, active citizens.

Outcomes

• Cohesion, groups met new people.
• Skills, social media, social reporting
• Enabled Young Persons as residents to have a valid say on key issues.

Women’s leadership

Delivered with a new third sector organisation WIRED. Project provided support to train the trainers and build capacity. Participants also took part in Voice for facilitators and echo.

Outcomes

• Doubled the number of trainers.
• Created important links with councillors as part of local democracy week
• A link with Parliamentary outreach. The outcomes have fed back to influence the work in Parliament.
• Participants now know where to go to influence

The asset transfer project

Targeting of information sessions with key organisations and individuals raising the level of understanding of what structures and procedures need to be in place. Specific work was undertaken on the development of governance and building trust with specific organisations.

The project’s added value

• There is a legacy the work will carry on via the Adult Residents University. A key lessons learned: “Successful future work has to be in partnership”.
• Participants have gone on the become members of management committee and neighbourhood boards.
• Developed cohesion with different BME groups: Asian, Afro Caribbean and Arabic meeting with each other.

Download this post as a Word doc (246kb)