We have been talking to Elected Members, individuals active in their communities, community groups, voluntary sector organisations and Council officers.

Emerging themes may not be that surprising, as they group under considerations of: Elected Member roles, actually ‘doing’ localism, structures and processes, skills & awareness and communications. The content is fascinating – and complex – and we are busy with our research analysis. Next step will be to pull together a draft guide, try that out with colleagues and research participants and then brush it up for final submission in May.

We have been over-whelmed by the active support of our leads in each of the 7 areas and the level of interest generated by this work. There is clearly growing awareness that many Elected Members will need support to embrace a role involving community group development and support, with all that we know that entails.

Einstein pointed out that ‘If you do what you’ve always done, you will get what you have always got’– so,

• if the local community centre only meets the needs of half a dozen people, if everything stays the same it will continue to meet the needs of those half a dozen people and nobody else
• if there is litter in the park and no action is taken to change it – there will still be litter in the park

And we all want different things to change – there are different things that bug us – or indeed inspire us.
This ‘model of change’ is our way of showing how we can get from a load of individuals who each have their own separate ideas, needs and interests and angsts – to a society where services and facilities are provided that meet the needs of the population as a whole. We call it a ‘whole area approach’.

If I go down a street of 16 houses, knock on each door and ask the householder what needs to change in their area to make it a better place to live, I will get 16 different answers, depending on their own circumstances:
• those with children may say something about better schools, play areas, youth clubs;
• other people may say their priorities are around faster internet access, or public transport to town, more allotments, a credit union, a community centre, local shops
The list is pretty endless but the point is that each household will have their own priorities based on their own circumstances and the things that they personally value (they will possibly all say something about dog mess!).

I can’t do much with 16 conflicting sets of priorities and will begin to wish I had never asked

Now – think again. Instead of going door to door, I bring all those 16 households together and FACILITATE a discussion – so, in an orderly way people express their priorities and consider the priorities of other people. Does house number 4 really mind about their play area when there is one round the corner? They may well reconsider this when they find out that House number 6 has prioritised drop kerbs because their son is a wheelchair user and struggles to navigate the streets.
In this scenario, we have started to consider other people’s needs in relation to our own – and in fact those drop kerbs will help lots of us: people with pushchairs, people with shopping trolleys, all of us with wheelie bins …

By bringing people together we can identify a much more informed and ‘sophisticated’ list of priorities (because, let’s face it – there is only so much money and resources to go round). There is a joint vision and people feel ownership of the idea and so are likely to put more effort in to taking it forward and making it happen.
Of course, it is not just the local people who need to be involved – if we are talking about drop kerbs then we need people from the Council – from Highways, perhaps from Parks Dept if we are going to be considering those options as well; perhaps local traders need to be involved
There are a whole range of ‘players’

Our ‘model of change’ recognises the connections between different parties and that actions taken by individuals have an effect on others. It also makes us think about WHO is getting involved and who isn’t – so we can guard against the loudest voices and make sure we don’t overlook the people and issues which tend to be forgotten – or ignored
So, there are connections between what I do, what you do, what my neighbour does, what the Council does – how we talk to each other (or not) – and there are connections with all of these and what voluntary sector organisations do – what community groups do – and how we all work together

Another example
Age Concern (now Age UK) runs a Hot Meals service which – everyone agrees – is an essential service for older people living in the area. The Council has stated that, despite the cuts, this is a service they want to protect and so they will continue to fund it.

Age Concern has its own mini-buses which they use for the Hot Meals Service and another local Voluntary Organisation has paid drivers who deliver it – the service runs like clockwork
However – the Council has cut funding to the other local Voluntary Organisation who have had to make redundancies – now there is no one to drive the mini-buses which deliver the Hot Meals Service.

Who needed to talk to whom?

So – where has all this got us?

What we have is:

a load of individuals – who need to know how to talk to each other, how to consider each other, who want things to change and who believe that they can play a role in that change – stick their own necks out – some of them, not all of them

Then we have voluntary sector organisations – and community groups – who need to know how to talk to each other and how to talk to their own staff and volunteers, who understand that when they take some action that things change for other people, they need to represent people properly, know who their members are and think about who is left out and the implications of that

Then we have the Council (or it might be the health trust, the police, the local traders association …. any ‘BODY’ which makes decisions) – who need to know what is going on, who needs what, how that will impact on others, how to communicate with their own staff and how staff communicate with each other, that staff can take decisions and respond to needs, they need to know what other people are doing and where their bit fits in

3 different sets of people – who connect with each other:
Individuals are  ‘variably active’ – some are ‘good citizens’ – do recycling, vote, are neighbourly; others get involved on various committees, on a community forum or as school governors or setting things up locally

Community groups and voluntary sector organisations are in various states of organisation – some are better than others at welcoming members or at talking to the Council or other agencies

Some ‘agencies’ are better at listening to communities (and/or individuals) than others

AND – we are all a bit muddled up – so that the people who work in agencies are also individuals – and they live in communities and take part in different activities

ALL of this is going on so we need some sort of ‘model of change’ that makes sense of it, recognises the relationships between these parties and helps us to do something about it – so that something changes!!!

1 – Voice – in the Axis of Influence series.
This workshop brought a wider audience to Voice and gave people some of the background, impetus and stories they need to use publicly available resources for community benefit. It linked with a holistic model of change to illustrate the fit of ‘community’ with active citizens (individuals) and public agencies.

2 – Women & Transformational Leadership
In this workshop we shareed our ideas and practice around women and critical, transformative leadership, exploring how these ideas could be useful in other contexts and put it in the context of a model of change

It was great to hear about what other people are up to and we have developed a new GROUP on our networking site for International Exchange – check it out!

A copy of all the resources we took with us can be found here

Elected Members – using Voice, echo and active citizenship frameworks to explore changing and complex roles in the light of Localism. We have been working with Parish, Town, Borough, City and County Councillors in different parts of the country and receiving very positive responses about how Voice and echo help them to structure conversations, see the wood amongst the trees and identify priorities.

Health Partnerships – using Voice and echo to build relationships with the community sector and voluntary sector, as well as individuals – creating partnerships to inform GP consortia in the new commissioning environment. Participants on Voice and echo courses have flagged up the potential here for systematic ways of working with sustainable outcomes. We are drafting up ideas and will get those out and about when they have a bit more detail to them.

“I have just found your women take part report. Fantastic! I am going to use it to argue for why we need a gender analysis in all we do in the Joint Forum’ and also for our service agreement with the council. The emphasis on learning about gender inequality, women centred support and the framework to overcome organisational barriers is brilliant”

Jackie Patiniotis

Joint Forum Development Worker
The Joint Forum, Liverpool

Instead of seeing leadership as something invested in one person we  consider leadership as a process: – tackling the big issues that face a group or an organisation.

For example, if we agree that there are three types of core issues in a group or organisation:
Strategic: the overall direction of the group and the vision
Task: how the group will achieve what it wants to
People: maintaining the morale, commitment and enthusiasm of people over time

Then, a leader is someone who helps the group tackle any or all of these issues - meaning that there can be several leaders at any one time, all working on different things.

It is therefore possible to talk about leadership being ‘dispersed’ throughout the group or organisation – with some having more dispersed leadership than others depending upon culture and membership.

People can demonstrate leadership in different ways:

• Reviewing where the group or organisation is going
• Making sure people feel comfortable and welcomed
• Searching for funding opportunities
• Representing the group in wider forums
• Researching matters of interest to the group
• Knowing the local political and funding context

People can only be leaders if other members of the group or organisation accept them as leaders, accept their influence. This acceptance is often based on knowledge and expertise.

It is available to view and/or download – just click here: Take Part framework

The Framework has been designed to:

• bring together current thinking and practice around citizenship learning and adults
• emphasise the link between active learning and active citizenship
• situate ‘citizenship’ within broad political and theoretical contexts
• provide a resource – to use – and add to

It is for learning providers, educationalists, trainers and facilitators, policy makers, funders, community workers and planners who want to:

• support education which strengthens democracy, governance and society
• provide learning opportunities which reach out to people
• take a learner-centred approach
• encourage people to make a difference for themselves and others
• engage more effectively with a wider range of people

The framework was developed by Jill Bedford (changes), Helen Marsh (London Civic Forum) and Dave Wright (Exeter CVS), following a two year pilot, Active Learning for Active Citizenship, funded by the Home Office. IMPACT! Women Active in Community and Public Life – mentioned elsewhere on this website – was the Black Country hub.