THE WINSTON CHURCHILL MEMORIAL TRUST OF AUSTRALIA · skills during the long summer break have developed a creative programme in partnership ... Gordon Jack & Owen Gill for doing the

1/25

THE WINSTON CHURCHILL MEMORIAL TRUST OF AUSTRALIA Report by: Heather McIntyre - 2008 Churchill Fellow To study community based approaches to early childhood development

I understand that the Churchill Trust may publish this Report, either in hard copy or on the internet and consent to such publication. I indemnify the Churchill Trust against any loss, costs or damages it may suffer out of any claim or proceedings made against the Trust in respect of or arising out of the publication of any Report submitted to the Trust and which the Trust places on a website for access over the internet. I also warrant that my Final Report is original and does not infringe the copyright of any person, or contain anything which is, or the incorporation of which into the Final Report is, actionable for defamation, a breach of any privacy law or obligation, breach of confidence, contempt of court, passing-off or contravention of any other private right or of any law. Heather McIntyre Signed: Date:

2/25

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 3

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................. 3

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................... 4

Highlights............................................................................................................ 4

Dissemination of Findings .................................................................................. 4

PROGRAMME................................................................................................... 5

LETS’ TIP THE BALANCE IN FAVOUR OF PREVENTION! ........................... 6

STAGE ONE – UNITED STATES ..................................................................... 8

Jim Diers ............................................................................................................ 8

Professor Robert Putnam................................................................................. 10

Lennox Hill Neighbourhood House................................................................... 13

The Seattle Summer Reading Programme ...................................................... 13

STAGE TWO – IRELAND ............................................................................... 14

Family Support and the role of the Health Service Executive .......................... 14

Community Development & the Community Development Programme .......... 15

Community Development and Family Support ................................................ 15

Family Support Now Conference ..................................................................... 16

Intergeneration Programmes – Connemara Ireland......................................... 17

New Housing Development Area – Dromahair Ireland .................................... 18

New Development Area – Pontypridd Wales ................................................... 18

STAGE THREE – UNITED KINGDOM............................................................ 18

Dr Mary Smith .................................................................................................. 18

Gordon Jack Reader in Social Work – Durham University............................... 20

Owen Gill PhD Anti Poverty Coordinator – Barnardo’s South West England .. 20

Introducing the Sure Startchildren’s Centres.................................................... 21

Community Gardens ........................................................................................ 23

A visit to Seven Stories .................................................................................... 23

CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS .................................................... 24

3/25

INTRODUCTION

Emerging research strongly indicates that the most effective way to address issues of intergenerational unemployment, welfare dependency, delinquency and crime is to invest in the early years of a child’s life.1 Without intervention it is estimated that vulnerable children from disadvantaged communities start school 18 months behind the national average - and this gap only widens as children continue through school! We need to consider the effect of this, not only on the individual child but the long term effect on a school or a community where almost every child starts school 18 months behind the national average. Indeed, in some states in the US when planning for the number of gaols that will be required in the future one of the determinants is Grade 4 reading tests!2 This Churchill Fellowship is based on the following 4 questions:

How do little children from socially disconnected and isolated families’ access the quality services that are available to them?

How do we ensure these children are provided with more than ‘just adequate’ resources to begin life, that they are ready to start school, and that they are given every possible opportunity to flourish?

Is it possible to develop strategic and holistic ways of strengthening the life and self-determination of the communities in which children grow thereby enhancing this most fundamental way of supporting families with young children?

What role does targeted community development have to play in strengthening a local community to better support families and children?

Our generation will not be remembered for the number of gaols that we bequeath. It could however be remembered for rescuing the souls of our most vulnerable children. . . Our sense of justice, our obligation to all of our children demands nothing less.3

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge and extend my sincere thanks to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust for providing this opportunity. “We can’t underestimate the importance of these conversations with our overseas counterparts.” Interview with Gordon Jack

My thanks and appreciation is also extended to Wesley Mission – an organisation that has provided me with the opportunity to try new things and to work with some truly talented and dedicated people, my sincere thanks to the already busy staff who stepped in during my absence and ensured the good work continued.

Families NSW (Dept of Community Services) – who have over the last six years consistently encouraged our projects to think outside the square!

My special thanks to everyone I visited and interviewed in the US, UK and Ireland. Thank you for so willingly and generously giving of your time, sharing your knowledge, understandings and ideas.

And to my husband Mal for helping make this dream a reality!

1 Social Inclusion and Early Childhood Development Australian Government January 2009 page 3 2 Jesse Jackson, quoted in Graham Allen and Iain Duncan Smith Early Intervention: Good Parents, Great Kids, Better Citizens. The Centre for Social Justice 3 Public Education Day, 18/5/2006 THE EDUCATION AND CARE OF OUR CHILDREN: GOOD

BEGINNINGS. Professor Tony Vinson

4/25

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY . . .you get to a stage when you have to say: “How do we get upstream, rather than just dealing with the problems when they arrive fully formed downstream?.4

Jon Collins, Nottingham Council Leader Overwhelmingly the key finding of this Churchill Fellowship is to once again confirm the age old adage that prevention is better than cure! In this field of work which seeks to address the long term effects of negative early childhood experiences we must honour the irrefutable body of research which so clearly demonstrates that the greatest change comes by investing in the early years of a child’s life. If prevention is the key, then delivery of professional services which work to increase the social connections of all families whilst strengthening the neighbourhoods in which families with young children live is the way to make the key turn! If Professor Robert Putnam is correct in his assertion that people who are socially isolated are as much at risk of death as people who smoke, then surely a campaign that is as wide reaching and comprehensive as the anti-smoking campaign is called for! As a nation we are concerned about a range of social ills, obesity, depression, child abuse and neglect, and the continuing inequality endured by our Indigenous citizens – what if we simply cannot address individual issues independently of their root cause, and what if at the very root of our social ills is the disconnection that we feel from the neighbourhoods in which we live. As a foundational first step I would recommend a national community connecting campaign! Run along the lines of the effective ‘Life Be in It” campaign which so successfully raised the awareness of the nation to the life enhancing impact of good healthy diet and exercise. Further recommendations are presented at the conclusion of this report which more specifically addresses the issues of early childhood interventions however they too could be viewed as targeting individual issues if we do not have an overarching understanding of the crippling effects of social disconnection and the breakdown of social capital. Let’s tip the balance in favour of prevention!

Highlights

Examples of creative and entrepreneurial community building practices: An intergenerational project in Ireland where senior members of the community and school

children share their knowledge and skills. Grandparents teach children to knit, children teach grandparents to text! And all the interactive, relational, spontaneous social capital benefits that result!

The Seattle Public Library in seeking to address the issue of children losing their reading skills during the long summer break have developed a creative programme in partnership with local businesses and community members

Also: Professor Robert Putnam for contextualising the role of welfare agencies. Gordon Jack & Owen Gill for doing the hard work and writing the book: The Child and

Family in Context, Developing ecological practice in disadvantaged communities.

Dissemination of Findings Findings of this report will be presented to Wesley Mission, Families NSW and Family Services Inc for dissemination. Workshops will be available for workers in the field. Heather McIntyre, Regional Manager, Wesley Family Services – Northwest Sector Wesley Mission. (02) 9626 6620 [email protected]

4 John Collins, Nottingham Council Leader, quoted in Graham Allen and Iain Duncan Smith Early Intervention: Good Parents, Great Kids, Better Citizens. The Centre for Social Justice

5/25

PROGRAMME

United States 29th May – 12th June

Jim Diers - Seattle Seattle Public Library Professor Robert Putnam - Boston Lennox Hill Neighbourhood House - NYC St Lukes School - NYC

Ireland 13th June – 21st June

Child & Family Research Conference - Galway The Ark’s Children Centre - Dublin Community Gardens Projects - Leitrim Connemara Family & Community Services Dromahair Community Development Project

United Kingdom 22nd June – 16th July

Dr Mary Smith - Dalkeith Gordon Jack - Durham Owen Gill - Bristol Iona Community - Iona St Faggins City Farm & Museum - Cardiff Pontypridd Sports Club - Wales Seven Stories – Newcastle on Tyne Bath Children’s Centre Patterdale Community Fair International Association of Community Development - Falkland Bromley By Bow Community Centre - London North East England City Farms & Community Gardens

… and one hundred and one informal conversations with staff, parents and children in local libraries, community centres and community gardens each showing a real concern and dedication to their youngest members.

6/25

LETS’ TIP THE BALANCE IN FAVOUR OF PREVENTION! It is easy to spot a healthy well connected community. During my recent Churchill Fellowship travels the signs of vibrant communities were everywhere. It was summer, and parks were alive with all ages involved in a multitude of spontaneous, informal activities - Frisbee, baseball and basketball, people jogging, skating, and walking their dogs, mothers in groups of 2 or 3 wheeling babies and chatting. There was play equipment, footpaths, flowers, grass areas, coffee shops, bicycle paths. . .

A visit to the local library showcased the range of activities available – a summer reading program for children which involved local businesses, schools and the libraries; playgroups, history groups, music groups, gardening groups. Groups for parents, groups for kids, groups for people with disabilities, groups for gay and lesbians, groups for dads and groups for grandparents! Signs were up around the towns advertising musicals, volunteering opportunities, dances, farmers markets and community lunches.

As so many of the professionals I interviewed exclaimed with a measure of frustration, “It’s not rocket science! Children flourish in communities that flourish!”

My work for the past few years has been managing a number of community development and family support projects in Northwest Sydney – both of which have as their stated aim the strengthening of families with children and the communities in which those children live. The focus of this Churchill Fellowship was primarily structured around the community development side of my work, however as the Fellowship unfolded, I was reminded of and inspired by the level of community capacity building work carried out by generalist family support agencies and the intention, particularly in Ireland and Scotland, on bringing family support work back into the centre of the Child Protection continuum.

The Families Connect Projects are the community development and community capacity building arm of our work in Northwest Sydney, funded by Families NSW (NSW Dept of Community Services), and under the auspice of Wesley Mission.

Families NSW projects were first introduced in NSW in 1998 based on international research; in particular the Sure Start program in the United Kingdom and Head Start in the United States and on the work of James Garbarino which asserts that:

The quality and character of parenting results in part from the social context in which families operate. One important feature of this social context is public policy. . . . policy issues . . . affect parenting, and does so within an ecological framework highlighting the role of "social toxicity" in challenging parental competence in late 20th century America. The issues [which need to be] discussed include policies regarding, state responsibility for children, economic conditions affecting families, the role of neighbourhoods in family support, and the allocation of resources to prevention, intervention, support, and empowerment programs. Parents face different opportunities and risks in rearing their children because of their mental and physical make-up and because of the social environment they inhabit.5

5 James Garbarino, “Supporting Parents in a Socially Toxic Environment.” Parenthood in America Conference Proceedings 1998. http://parenthood.library.wisc.edu/Garbarino/Garbarino.html.

7/25

The ‘Families Connect’ projects in western Sydney employ a number of workers who work to assist in strengthening the local community based on the understanding that stronger community connections are better able to support families with children 0 - 8 years, ensuring that these children have a good start to life and are well prepared to transition from home to school.

‘It takes a village to raise a child’ is the traditional wisdom which captures the essential and foundational truth that Families Connect Community Development Workers hold at the centre of all their work. Hugh MacKay sums up our experience of local families wanting a place to belong within their local community:

Perhaps we are on the brink of reinventing the wheel – coming again to realise, as if it’s a discovery, that we are social creatures who thrive on the sense of belonging to a community. . . Although many of us belong to a variety of groups – the workplace, special interest groups, clubs, churches, friendship circles – there’s a strong intuitive sense that we also need to feel part of the local neighbourhood where we actually live. The need for a sense of place that is both secure and familiar is strong within us; no matter how connected we may feel in other ways, there is a special meaning of ‘community’ that relies on locality.6

My own area of interest is connected with the questions outlined in the introduction of this paper, strong communities supporting all families with young children, but with a particular concern and emphasis for the inclusion of children and families from disadvantaged and vulnerable communities. The research is irrefutable, if children from our most disadvantaged communities are going to flourish and ultimately break the cycle of the intergenerational unemployment, welfare dependency and crime which shapes their community, we must invest in the first few years of a child’s life. This is where the greatest change will come.7

Without intervention it is estimated that our most vulnerable children from disadvantaged communities start school 18 months behind the national average - and this gap will only widen as the children continue through school! We need to consider the effect of this, not only on the individual child but the long term effect on a school or a community where almost every child starts school 18 months behind the national average.

Chillingly, perhaps, some states in the US use Grade 4 reading test results as a determinative indicator when planning for the number of future gaols that will be required to house children who have not been assisted to flourish into a self-sustainable adulthood. Alternately, comes the cry of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, ‘If we can use the reading results of eight year olds to build jails surely we can also use them to plan Early Intervention.’8

This research therefore establishes that we do not lack the knowledge, statistical or otherwise, to be able to make appropriate judgments about the best targeting of resources for better outcomes. For this reason, strengthening the local community - the neighbourhood in which the child actually lives - and assisting families and individuals to participate in a neighbourhood where even the most socially isolated family feels a sense of belonging, is itself preventative work in action!

These were the background concerns with which I embarked on my Churchill Fellowship study tour. In particular I approached my conversations with other practitioners as an opportunity to test and hopefully expand my understanding of the following assumptions:

Strong communities are served well when responsive professional services complement the existing models of service provision with inclusive, locally informed community development and community capacity building strategies.

Strong communities are cost effective – each community has its own treasure trove of creative, innovative and resourceful members – the role of a genuinely professional community development worker is to act as the catalyst for unlocking all this potential, creating opportunities for families to begin to connect with one another and to watch as the community begins to do what communities have always done!

6 Hugh Mackay, Advance Australia Where? (Sydney: Hachette Australia, 2007), pp.286-7. 7 Social Inclusion and Early Childhood Development Australian Government January 2009 page 3 8 Jesse Jackson, quoted in Graham Allen and Iain Duncan Smith Early Intervention: Good Parents, Great Kids, Better Citizens. The Centre for Social Justice

8/25

Strong communities are an effective measure against child abuse and neglect. A holistic understanding of the many potentially protective factors influencing a child’s development assumes that the most effective first step to possibilities for prevention is to nurture relationships among neighbours and develop a wider sense of responsibility for the community.

Strong communities are sustainable - by developing and maintaining relationships, and investing in training and improving the self-confidence and connections between neighbours, local networks can continue to benefit the community long after a professionally initiated and funded project might end.

Let’s tip the balance in favour of prevention - was the sentiment I found recurring time and again as I interviewed a diverse range of practitioners, theorists and community workers in conversation about these issues.

STAGE ONE – UNITED STATES

JIM DIERS

Teacher. Department of Architecture & Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle. Author of “Neighbor Power – Building Community the Seattle Way”9 Jim Diers was the Pied Piper for the Seattle neighborhood movement which built a national and international reputation for its new approach to planning, giving real meaning to the slogan ‘Power to the People’. In describing the potential for this approach to revitalise our cities, his writing is a must-read for citizen activists, urban planners, and elected officials. - Paul Schell, former Mayor of Seattle Some writers talk about democracy, but Jim Diers has done it. Here he gracefully shares his invaluable experience, proving that democracy is not something done to us or for us, it’s what we ourselves do to create communities that work for all. Neighbor Power is rich in lessons that any community can apply. An antidote to despair – a must read in trying times! - Frances Moore Lappe’, author of “You Have the Power” and “Diet for a Small Planet” The quotes above are taken directly from the back cover of Jim Diers’ book, Neighbor Power, Building Community the Seattle Way, effectively capturing not just the essence of the Community Building work that Jim has been involved in for so many years, but also capturing the ineffable qualities of Jim himself. Jim quite simply embodies the qualities of what we need in anyone wanting to take seriously the work of bringing about change at a community level. He is enthusiastic, engaging and charismatic with a solid foundation of knowledge and experience and a well developed philosophy for this work.

Key Perspectives

In conversation with Jim Diers, the following key perspectives and principles emerged as Jim freely summarised some of the important aspects and learning’s of his career in teaching and leading innovative Community Development initiatives.

‘Neighbourhood’ and ‘community’ are words that are often used interchangeably, but for Jim these are to be understood as interlocking yet necessarily separate concepts. A ‘neighbourhood’ is the place with which we more or less identify geographically. ‘Communities’ are defined much more by our actively social relationships. A Community is strong to the extent that individuals actively identify with their neighbourhood as ‘their place’ and actively support one another, working together for the common good.

The way of working with communities advocated by Jim Diers builds upon an assumption that people already have genuine desire for community and strong connections, have all the strengths and resources necessary and that given the opportunity to clearly articulate these desires, they will participate as active agents of community change.

9 Neighbor Power: Building Community The Seattle Way. Jim Diers

9/25

There is a direct correlation between a strengths-based philosophy of working with families (eg., Strengths Based Solution Focus Therapy), and the fundamental strengths based or assets based philosophy of working with communities. Simply asking questions about communities which are not problem based – by asking what resources already exist and what strengths are already there and building on those leads to real change.

Beginning with manageable and tangible projects will lead to sustainable pathways for ongoing growth and community-initiated innovation.

Any initiative working toward the strengthening of a given community must be sensitive and appropriate to the current financial and economic climate. Good Community Development which builds a strong base of community ownership leads to tangible cost-benefits with a significantly reduced level of government funding per capita of population.

Given that the strongest desire of families is for positive outcomes for their children, a more strengths based approach is a powerful community development philosophy, providing the theoretical underpinning for enhancing strengths-based family work and empowering families and community members to initiate self advocacy for these outcomes at a community level.

An assets based approach using Community Development as a key strategy to bring about enhanced outcomes for families and children is especially useful in improving the situation of otherwise disadvantaged CALD communities. Jim Diers’ example related to a situation in which health, literacy and service access for Somali families who were migrants in a disadvantaged neighbourhood of Seattle were simultaneously addressed by the provision of retraining for migrants to utilise their country of origin skills for the benefit of the community. A Somali Taxi Driver who had been a doctor in his own country was assisted to acquire nursing qualifications in the US. This directly impacted the economic situation of his own family and provided a much needed resource for health care, advocacy and social connection for the entire community.

‘Out of the silos’ is a regular cry of practitioners in various services and agencies across the social service spectrum. Community Development practice which is necessarily attuned to the actual shape of a community’s holistic needs is able to provide the data for how these services need to practically interact – a perspective usually unavailable to any one service operating in isolation! Community Development practice provides a catalyst in order that the community itself is able to provide the much needed leadership of how services might better achieve enhanced outcomes for families and children.

Jim Diers suggests that this is one of the most critical areas for creative and alternative thinking. It is important not just to look at the government services available (eg., health & education) but also to think laterally about what other resources exist at the local level. One example from Jim Diers’ own work involved university students studying architecture coming to assist school children to redesign their local playground which had been defaced by adolescents. A coalition of children, their parents, and the local school then recruited the disaffected local youth in providing the labour to bring this collaborative design to fruition including a large sculptured concrete dragon. Such a win-win opportunity enabled this community to address multiple needs simultaneously, achieve improved community connectedness as well as provide the students with valuable real-world design experience and exposure to professional practice. To date, reportedly, the playground in that community has not been vandalised.

10/25

Jim Diers spoke insistently about the crucial need to professionalise community development practice without sacrificing passion and the desire to see genuine change. In fact, Jim suggested that greater professionalism is directly linked with the sustainability of positive outcomes in a context which is becoming increasingly shaped by complex financial governance and public liability requirements. It is therefore incumbent upon an increasingly professionalised model of Community Development practice that workers be willing to address themselves in an entrepreneurial fashion to all aspects of planning, government compliance and financial due diligence since these will become increasingly critical to a project’s long-term sustainability. It is this detailed work of planning and administration which will free up the community to do what communities do best – build strong and healthy connections for families and children to flourish.

Jim suggested the development of detailed tools and check-lists covering all aspects of planning, government and funding body compliance alongside clear criteria as to whether emerging proposals continue to serve the interests of the community and sustainable community involvement.

‘The Neighbourhood Matching Funds Program.’ Jim Diers’ suggested this initiative of The City of Seattle’s Department of Neighbourhoods as a model of an integrated Community Development framework. The Neighbourhood Matching Fund supports local grassroots action in neighbourhoods. It is a resource available to neighbourhood groups interested in doing projects that address a specific community need and also builds community. Community fund-raising is matched dollar for dollar, by the City of Seattle, to increase community ownership and leverage government compliance with community directed outcomes.

Community development professionals need to achieve a greater competency as creative social entrepreneurs on behalf of the common good.

A ‘strengths based’ approach to community development work is essentially a process of active re-democratisation in which communities empower themselves, appropriately disempowering government by focussing on the limits and deficiencies of government and professional services, thereby returning them to their rightful place as subservient to the welfare and common-wealth of the community.

Strong Communities can also play a major role in crime prevention. Too many block watch programs focus on encouraging residents to install deadbolt locks and peer through their peep-holes by outsiders. Real security comes from opening doors to community life. No amount of public safety spending can buy the kind of security that comes from neighbours caring and watching out for one another. (p.172)

PROFESSOR ROBERT PUTNAM

Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, Author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

Introduction: Robert Putnam is a political scientist and professor of public policy at Harvard University and is best known for his development of the term ‘Social Capital’. His book Bowling Alone suggests that the United States has undergone an unprecedented collapse in Social Capital (civic, social, associational, and political life) since the 1960s, with serious negative consequences. According to Robert Putnam, a breakdown in social capital is a breakdown in trust and reciprocity within a community and can be associated

with: Lower confidence in local government, local leaders and the local news media.

Lower political efficacy – ie, a diminishing confidence in one's own political and social influence which becomes self-fulfilling in actuality.

A corresponding decline in voter registration (US).

11/25

Less expectation that others will co-operate to solve dilemmas of collective action (e.g., voluntary conservation to ease a water or energy shortage).

Less likelihood of participation in community projects, giving to a charity or volunteering.

Fewer close friends and confidants.

A decrease in reported levels of personal happiness and a lower perceived quality of life.

More time spent watching television as a preferred form of entertainment.

Within weeks of commencing in my community development role in 2003, I heard a replay of Geraldine Doogue conducting an interview with Robert Putnam on ABC Radio National’s, Life Matters. This interview made a huge impression on me and assisted me to define my understanding of my role as a Community Development worker, confirming my own intuition that strong and connected communities are vital for all of us. A few points which were particularly helpful:

Robert Putnam cited public health research to support his claim that ‘a person who is socially isolated is as much at risk of death as a person who smokes!’10

As well his distinction between the two forms of social capital, bonding and bridging. Bonding is what we do with people like us, same age, same race, same religion, same socio economic background etc.

Bridging is when we make friends with people who are not like us – different generation, race etc. A combination of bonding and bridging serves to strengthen the other and therefore social capital. However if there is a breakdown in bonding capital the inevitable consequence is a decline of bridging capital which is what leads to greater ethnic and social tensions. A clear example of this is the Cronulla Riots in Sydney 2005.

And finally he said the solution is not to try and return to the past. The challenge is to re-invent ways for people to connect with each other, just as newly industrialised and urbanised societies had to do at the end of last century.

The following is an edited report of my own interview with Professor Putnam conducted at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University:

I began by asking Professor Putnam to offer a comment on the role of Welfare professionals. Do we help or hinder the process of developing Social Capital?

Professor Putnam’s answer was a succinct overview of the history of selected welfare organisations as he has researched them in the United States and in the United Kingdom. I value this conversation as an example of rigorous theoretical under-standing speaking to the practical issues of professionalised service delivery. All too easily, perhaps, we forget that the work we do today as professional workers had its origin in the initiative of those acting upon what they regarded as their social conscience in order to maximise the public good in an era when no such professionalised services were available. As an example Professor Putnam offered a comprehensive history of The Settlement Movement:

The Settlement House Movement started in London in the mid 19th century as a way of addressing increasing concern with poverty. ‘Rich, well-to-do’, university students from Oxford began to live and work in slum areas. The first Settlement Houses included Toynbee House and Oxford House. Some contemporary criticism asserted that this work was overly ‘paternalistic’ even if well meaning. Nevertheless the settlement movement is recognised as the foundation of a form of social engagement which gave rise to the development of social work practice in the UK, and was at least innovative of new ways of thinking about and working to improve the conditions of the poor.

Professor Putnam went on to outline the history of the movement as it was adopted in the US. In this case the practices of the Settlement House movement were adopted and developed by wealthy, over-educated 19th century women seeking for something more than the conventional and expected life trajectory of their class. These women sought to further the lessons of the original movement as they self-consciously ‘lived

10 Geraldine Doogue interview with Robert Putnam. ABC Radio National,Life Matters 26.09.01

12/25

and learned’ from the poor families with whom they lived and worked. They worked largely with Italian immigrants who were experiencing the isolation of migration. There was no state funding, no training and their charitable eccentricity was not considered ‘professional’ in any way that we might recognise today.

Jane Adams founded the Settlement House Movement in the US in 1889 after a tour of Europe which included visits to Toynbee House in London. At its height, Hull House was visited each week by around 2000 people. Its facilities included a night school for adults, clubs for older children, a public kitchen, an art gallery, coffeehouse, gymnasium, girls club, bathhouse, book bindery, music school, drama group, a library, and labor-related divisions. Her adult night school was a forerunner of the continuing education classes offered by many universities today.

A significant dimension of the Hull House work was with mothers and children. Migrant mothers were able to take their children along to a ‘kindergarten’, run by volunteers, to be assisted with learning English – at the same time the mothers were able to attend English classes (again run by volunteers) as well as a whole range of mother’s groups and in the process were connected to other women and their community. According to Professor Putnam these acts were simple but profound generators of social capital!

The progressive spirit of the 20th century came to exert new influence on the thinking of the movement. Increasingly from the 1920s onwards there were calls to professionalise the work of Settlement Houses which culminated in the establishment of a school of social work. ‘Volunteers’ now had professional standing and access to public funding. The parallel Kindergarten Movement kept part with public school teachers who were increasingly gaining professionalised status and standards of practice.

Professor Putnam concluded that although he himself would have agreed with the progressive move to professionalise this work as a way of expanding and multiplying what was being achieved by these movements, the unfortunate trade off was sadly a corresponding decline in its potential to generate social capital. Professor Putnam used the following metaphor to describe this process: ‘the social capital around the coral disappeared’. The new model became one of ‘providing a service’; what he called ‘the vaccination model’ which works well when vaccinating kids against disease but doesn’t work as well for families who need to be connected to their community and thereby inoculated against social isolation.

Given the manner in which Professor Putnam had so ably illustrated something of the history within which professional practice had emerged and developed, I also asked him to offer a reflection on what might now be the emerging opportunities and obstacles in light of current historical events. What opportunities, for instance, might emerge from the current global financial crisis? Professor Putnam offered the following:

First of all there is no research to indicate that this will be a positive time. Professor Putnam could not see any immediate positive benefits for social capital in an era which is presently offering only contraction and decline in economic indicators.

He suggested that so many of the stories even now emerging seeking to recollect the Great Depression as a time when the community worked together, helping each other through difficult times, are by and large not true. This is a myth which obscures the reality that significant decrease in the common wealth is reflected in a decrease in social capital.

It is, rather, a truism that in times of trouble human beings ‘hunker down’ and become more shaped by personal survival. It is far more important to individuals and families that they maintain their own employment than that they consider the needs of others who are unemployed.

Further, Professor Putnam suggested that his research has indicated that an experience of significant unemployment has a permanently diminishing impact on a person’s degree of civic engagement and as a contributor to social capital.

13/25

LENNOX HILL NEIGHBOURHOOD HOUSE – UPPER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN

The Lennox Hill Neighbourhood House is directly descended from the Kindergarten Movement which emerged in parallel with those Settlement Houses which Robert Putnam discussed above. It was founded in 1894 as a free kindergarten for children of migrant factory workers and emerged from one of the first settlement houses in the United States.

Lennox Hill Neighbourhood House presently offers a wide assortment of services for seniors, families, teenagers and children including an Early Childhood Centre, and After School Service as well as a Summer Camp Program. These programmes are supported by a family service which provides social workers and other specialists to work alongside families and offer support for special needs, health and school transition.

Lennox Hill also functions as a de facto ‘community hub’ for the Upper East Side of New York City and also offers adult education classes and social and recreational groups for seniors.

One of the initiatives is the Block Organising Group which encourages tenants to join together to ensure their buildings are maintained by the building’s owner. The underlying aim however is to get residents from within a block to connect with their neighbours.

According to one of the local residents, ‘in New York City your block is your neighbourhood and every neighbourhood is different. There are many, many people in your block and you often meet in your local supermarket, day care centre etc. These are important places for the community to connect and build a sense of belonging to the neighbourhood.”

THE SEATTLE SUMMER READING PROGRAMME 2009

. . . A great example of accidental Community Development Practice

Research in the United States indicates that during the extended summer recess from school, children tend to lose those reading skills developed throughout the rest of the school year.11 The Seattle Public Library in partnership with local businesses has sought to redress this by developing The Summer Reading Program as a means to encourage children to continue reading throughout the summer vacation. In the process, this project offers an exemplary example of the far-reaching potential for building networks of social capital and connectedness across different sectors of the community which are more extensive than the actual program itself might initially suggest.

The purpose of this project is to prevent what the Library calls ‘summer setback’ with respect to the reading skills of school-age children. Based upon research which shows conclusively that students who read four to five books over the summer, score better on post-vacation reading tests, the library offers an important educational resource to teachers, children and their families as well as building meaningful and potentially ongoing connection between children’s families and an immediately accessible resource for social capital.

The program also introduces children to an experience of reading unconnected to the immediate school environment – reading merely for pleasure. According to the Library’s promotional literature, just six minutes of reading can reduce stress levels by more than two-thirds – more effective than sipping a cup of tea, taking a long walk or listening to music! This experience therefore provides a resource to those positive, shared experiences between parents and children which are often the object of family support and parenting education interventions.

To nurture a sense of community “. . . the local library has an intrinsic role to play within the local neighbourhood, it is more and more a meeting place for all ages!” Nancy Slote, Manager of Seattle Public Library

How does it work?

Children sign up for the Summer Reading Program in the notebook binder at their branch. The Librarian provides the children with a reading log to keep track of the books they read. Children list the books they intend to read on the log.

11 Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap Karl L. Alexander, Doris R. Entwisle, Linda Steffel Olson

14/25

Children collect a sticker for each book read. Each sticker allows children to receive a free drink or small reward from participating local businesses. When they have read 10 books and collected 10 stickers they receive a free book of their choice and a free pass to the Cities Museum. Children who read 10 books during the Summer Break have their name put in a draw. The winners attend the Breakfast of Champions held at the Seattle Sheraton Hotel.

The Summer Reading Program 2009 is supported by an extensive range of activities and a suggested reading list for children and their family.

STAGE TWO – IRELAND It was in Ireland that I first experienced a resonance between my own concerns, (formed out of the work in Western Sydney) and the expressed concerns of professionals and practitioners with whom I came into contact. Here were people who spoke my language, albeit with a lovely Irish accent. This marked a certain degree of contrast with the interviews I had conducted in the United States in which practitioners addressed themselves largely to the broader issue of building social capital – although, to be sure, Jim Diers and the Lennox Hill Neighborhood House sought intentionally to include disadvantaged communities, families and children within the scope of their projects and concerns.

In Ireland, however, I discovered a much more explicit emphasis which clearly paralleled the various ways we had begun to understand the needs of families and children in our own setting in outer Western Sydney. In particular, a conversation was taking shape in Ireland which sought to identify best practice and fresh theoretical thinking about the nature of Family Support and Community Development work as part of an integrated system. The conversation taking place viewed each discipline as a necessary and complementary component to effectively working with families in the context of their local community. Families who would otherwise inevitably only have access to stand-alone individual services, and indeed many of the ‘hard to reach’ or most disadvantaged families would not access a service at all.

My desire to travel to Ireland to participate in a conference on just this topic had been as a result of reading an evaluation carried out by the Health Service Executive of The National University of Ireland in Galway and the university’s Child and Family Research Centre - the organisations responsible for convening this conference. The paper was entitled “A formative evaluation of the Community-Based Family Support Programme.” This paper was useful in that it provided clarification of how Family Support Work as a professional discipline should be understood. As well the paper addressed what Community Development work might offer in terms of a complementary practice in assisting to create an integrated approach to effective service delivery. This integrated approach essentially is both highly responsive to community needs and desires and addresses the long held professional concern of overcoming the limitation of services offered only through isolated and separated ‘silos’.

FAMILY SUPPORT AND THE ROLE OF THE HEALTH SERVICE EXECUTIVE (HSE) IN ITS PROVISION

According to the above report, family support programmes should maintain a clear focus on early intervention with the aim of promoting and protecting the health, well-being, and rights of children and families. ‘Family Support’, therefore, can be a term which refers either to a particular style of working to assist an improvement in family functioning, and as a set of activities that strengthen the capacity of children and families to identify and make use of their own supportive resources (Dolan, Pinkerton, & Canavan, 2006). Family support is considered most effective when locally based and accessible (Gilligan, 2000; McKeown, 2001). Additionally, a widening of the range of organisations and community agencies, (including schools, voluntary organisations and community groups) which can be enlisted around the goals of broadly shared, positive outcomes for children and families have been shown to be determinative in providing those protective factors which can also be described as an exercise in ‘family support’. Gilligan (1993) suggests that the role of the HSE in relation to family support should be:

To strengthen the coping and parenting capacity of a parent or parents

To maximise the resilience of children in the face of stress, by securing their integration into key supportive institutions such as the school. (Gilligan, 1993, p.2)

15/25

Within the HSE Child Care services there are three distinct but inter-connected service domains as detailed in the Western Health Board’s Strategy for Child and Family Care Services (2002): these are child protection, alternative care, and family support.

In view of the many interlocking influences for good or ill that families face, the HSE has adopted a view of family support as:

An important, clearly identifiable domain of professional work dedicated to the above outcomes

Any general professional working to achieve the integrated co-operation of all agencies and individuals working with children and their families in the context of their community

One of the key roles of HSE family support services is to prevent children and young people from entering care or the child protection system. One area of particular concern is neglect of children, which represents the biggest reason for referral to the child care system. Families where there are concerns of chronic neglect are often those experiencing greater disadvantage with poor employment, health and education needs. It is for this reason that the programme model was developed to combine a focus on addressing disadvantage with targeted family support provision.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME

Community development is concerned both with building resilience in communities and with empowering non-professionals to lead their own communities (McGrath, 2003, 2004). The national Community Development Programme was established in 1990 in recognition of the role of community development and a community development approach in tackling, poverty, exclusion and disadvantage. The aim of the Programme is to develop a network of community development resource centres and other projects in communities affected by high unemployment, poverty and disadvantage. Projects all have an anti-poverty, anti-exclusion focus and work using community development principles and methods. Projects are concerned with the needs of women and children, those with disabilities, the homeless, lone parent families, the elderly, the unemployed, young people at risk, travellers, and other disadvantaged groups.

Community development projects encourage the participation of people and groups in society by building their capacity to identify and realize solutions for themselves and their communities. The work of projects is people centred, aiming to enhance the skill and self-confidence of people to allow them to work collectively and influence issues of importance to their communities.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND FAMILY SUPPORT – COMMON GROUND

There is some obvious convergence between the activities of family support and community development. Many community development groups are now engaged in delivering services in marginalized communities such as child development and education interventions (crèches, nurseries, play groups, pre-schools, and homework clubs) and parent education programmes. From the perspective of family support, community development addresses the contextual factors which impinge on, and often exacerbate, the problems of vulnerable families.

McGrath (2003, 2004) explored the relationships between community development and family support as work styles as well as the relationships between CDP’s and HSE family support services in the West of Ireland and reports a consensus among CDP co-ordinators that family support is an explicit and important element of their work. There is considerable common ground, both in theory and in practice, based on the idea that families and family support services cannot be removed from the community context in which they exist (McGrath, 2004). While the collective focus of community development and the individual focus of family support interventions may appear disparate, they can also be considered mutually-influencing ends of a continuum (McGrath, 2004); community work has a potential effect on all individuals in that community and work with an individual puts that person in a better position to take full part in community activities. Goldsworthy (2002) highlights that it can be difficult to effectively mobilise collective action without some form of personal support that enhances people’s sense of self-worth and efficacy.

16/25

FAMILY SUPPORT NOW CONFERENCE

Reflecting on Contemporary Challenges

Child & Family Research Centre, National University of Ireland, Galway

The conference was entitled “Family Support Now: Reflecting on Contemporary Challenges” and provided a unique opportunity for practitioners, service providers and researchers to share knowledge and experience from both applied practice and theoretical perspectives in Family Support. My own preoccupation in attending this conference had been shaped by the paper I had read in preparation and from my desire to hear more explicit reflections concerning the possibilities for integration of Family Support Work with Community Development practice. The

conference was also seeking to explore how policy making and service delivery of Family Support Programmes have evolved in the past decade in both Ireland and internationally, and how these various factors might provide keys for shaping the response of workers for the challenges of the immediate future.

Attending this conference in Galway was something of a surreal experience. The topics under discussion were so familiar, the speakers were grappling with similar issues in much the same manner as we do in Australia. And yet, the nature of the professional work appeared more formalised and had led to the formation of professional partnerships that were further advanced than in Australia. It was also interesting to notice the extent to which this emerging professional network were seeking to address the historical and social particularities of the Irish context. This was an important reminder that the very touchstone of family support work as a professional enterprise lies in its ability to address itself to issues and outcomes for particular families in a very particular time and place.

This report cannot do justice or hope to summarise all the presentations at the conference, however a few points most relevant to my work in Western Sydney may be useful:

Family Support Work has undergone significant and rapid change in the last decade. Dr Mary Smith presented the findings of her completed doctorate in which she also recalled the not too distant past where family support workers would be called upon to “cook up a pot of soup” in a family’s home more readily than they would be expected to provide a professionally integrated mix of therapeutic engagement and strengths-based interventions. This is a real ‘in your face’ reminder of just how far the role has developed.

In a time in which funding bodies are seeking ever and ever greater return for scarce funding resources, the consequent need for multi-skilled practitioners trained to view the needs of families holistically and yet provide specific case-managed interventions is crucial. This requirement has meant that family support is more and more occupying a centre stage position in the children’s welfare and protection system in most jurisdictions.

Family Support has traditionally been viewed as low-cost, para-professional, a low-skilled adjunct work to more ‘professionalised’ services. This is no longer tenable in the face of greater reliance upon the increased skills and experience of workers in the field.

There is now an increased degree of professionalism – in Ireland this is set against the documented abuse of the church.

Increased professionalism is therefore both a necessary and desirable development. However this has also meant some corresponding diminishment of some important traditional dimensions of the work: volunteering, family workers skilled at finding ‘the hook’ for engaging families and staff willing to go the extra mile. Indeed this was an important echo of the perspective of Professor Robert Putnam’s recent research on the emergence of professionalised service providers in a range of fields.

17/25

In order to address the full spectrum of statutory expectations now being levied against family support work as a professional discipline, it is necessary for the field to be able to develop both Universal and Targeted services. Universal services are largely preventative and provide services accessible to all members of the community. Targeted services are able to provide a parallel of these functions in specifically tailored situations and/or to client groups which may have been identified with one or more indicators of especial vulnerability.

A debate has emerged concerning the role of prevention versus acute intervention within Family Support. Some of this debate has arisen, in part, due to a decrease in funding for all services; the resulting lack of traditional social work services has resulted in a larger demand being transferred to Family Support services as a means to bridge the gap. The generalist nature of Family Support work therefore has to stretch to accommodate more intensive clients with more complex needs. In some senses therefore the debate reflects the degree to which the field has professionalised and developed a greater degree of theoretical and practical sophistication.

Some resolution of this debate may be possible as Family Support services and professionals are able to further refine the nature of their work.: services specifically directed at children, services to support the family, and services to enhance the friendship and support networks of the child and his/her family.

INTERGENERATION PROGRAMMES – CONNEMARA IRELAND

. . . An example of creative Community Development Practice

For the past nine years a community development organisation in a regional area northwest of Galway has developed an intergeneration programme involving the children of thirteen schools, local seniors groups and the general community.

“Every locality has the valuable resources of older people. Social capital building and social support networking is a core element in family support practice, this project is a strategic and innovative way of working with children and families,” Marie Feeney, Program Coordinator.

How the program works:

A key Family Support Worker is responsible for developing the project

All Public Schools were approached to take part in this project – 13 schools and 9 existing Seniors groups

Older people meet with the worker before the sessions with the children to develop the program that they intend to run

Variety of initiatives to bring together the 2 groups including:

1. Granny Days, Grandad Days, Adopt a Granny. 2. A book was written on local stories, recipes and myths. 3. Craft days – knitting, baking, butter & basket making 4. Children taught ‘oldies’ to send an email and text message 5. Establishment of a vegetable patch

Key Findings & Outcomes:

Relationships have developed between generations and continue beyond the life of the project itself.

The programmes provided opportunities for the sharing of skills, knowledge and experience and the development of mutually beneficial relationships, which can promote and age-integrated society that is beneficial to individuals and communities.

Family Support practice involves putting in strategies or programmes that can build up positive networks for young people in their communities to enhance resilience factors.

Negative perceptions of the older generation about children AND of children about older people have been changed significantly.

18/25

NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENT AREA – DROMAHAIR IRELAND

A recurring theme throughout our travels was the number of new housing developments being built across all the countries we visited; most of which were being built on the fringes of old, well established villages and towns and much of the building was done during the ‘boom times’ leading up to the current economic climate. Similar to our own experience in Rouse Hill NSW, my question along the way was about how the old was integrating with the new. The following comments are from staff and families at Dromahair Community Centre . . .

Stonebridge in Dromahair is a new housing project introduced as part of the Rural Renewal Scheme in North West Ireland aimed at encouraging people to move out of the cities and into the country. Dromahair is 12 miles from Sligo Town.

New residents kept their children at Sligo schools, continued to commute to work, school, gyms, shopping etc and the new estate looked ‘a bit of a ghost town’ during the day.

Several homeowners are now looking to resell but caught in the economic downturn.

Old Dromahair residents view the housing estate as new, intruders, outsiders who don’t belong.

Margaret Slattery (Dromahair Development Association) reported some slight movement toward integration - Toddlers groups are now attended by old and new residents.

‘Dromahair Devil Festival being held the following weekend will bring everyone together. We have a meeting shortly after that to work on a calendar of similar events, Autumn, Winter, Summer and

Spring.’ The festival is seen as an easily accessible event that all residents will be able to relate to and feel a sense of connection to their town.

Domahair literally means “the devil between two ridges” hence the name of the festival!

NEW DEVELOPMENT AREA – PONTYPRIDD WALES

In a small town near Pontypridd in Wales it is the local football club which is bringing families together; they have the fastest growing Rugby Club in Wales and attribute one of their Club Rules as a big part of this success. The rule is that whenever a new family comes to the club or to a football game they are welcomed by one of the older members and invited to sit with them. No new family is ever allowed to sit by themselves!

STAGE THREE – UNITED KINGDOM

DR MARY SMITH

Integration Manager Dalkeith Integration Team SCOTLAND. Mary has recently completed a PhD in Family Support Work & is associate lecturer at Edinburgh University I first met Dr Mary Smith when she appeared as one of the keynote speakers at the “Family Support Now” Conference in Galway, and was interested to meet with her to discuss her recently completed PhD research surveying contemporary perspectives on Family Support work. In Scotland I met with Mary and her Integration Team in Dalkeith just outside of Edinburgh. In particular, I wanted to speak with Mary and observe first-hand her work in the Scottish context. I was especially interested in Mary’s ideas on how Family Work practice incorporates community development strategies for community engagement. Mary’s input has assisted my thinking in two ways. Firstly, she was able to explain an approach to her work of service integration which provides a practical model for how services can work together to

19/25

directly influence outcomes for children and families in her region. Secondly, and crucially, Mary outlined her personal view concerning the management and support of staff in a way which confirmed my own natural style and intuition about why people work in this sector – that people actually want to make a real difference and when fully supported will more than rise to the challenges involved.

I would summarise the outcome of my conversation with Dr Mary Smith as follows:

Integrated Children’s Services

The Integrated Children’s Services approach is a response to the Scottish Government’s “Getting it Right for Every Child” report released in 2005. - The vision for Scotland outlined in that report projected that all Scottish children will be “confident Individuals, effective contributors, successful learners and responsible citizens.” The report also goes on to state that in order to achieve this vision “children need to be safe, nurtured, healthy, achieving, active, respected and responsible and included.”

Working intentionally with agencies covered by the Midlothian Local Authority, Mary Smith’s Integration Team assists to bring about the following initiatives and programs:

In Midlothian Health, Education, and Social Work providers, together with the Police and the Voluntary Sector have committed to a joint response to this government initiative, each delegating staff to attending joint project meetings and for staff to take work back to their service. This is seen as a significant move towards ‘a one door’ entry system to help vulnerable children and families access the services

Multi-agency meetings are designed to open up channels of communication between agencies and enable a ‘joined up’ planning and support approach for children and young people in the region.

Evaluations of this approach also showed a shared understanding and a greater appreciation of the wider issues families face and that no one agency is left to support complex cases on its own

Roots and Wings for Community and Family Workers

Our staff are our greatest resources

Community & Family Workers consistently ‘go the extra mile’, they are resourceful and dedicated

It is the manager’s and organisation’s responsibility to ensure staff are provided with a strong foundation – good training and supervision, the clear space from which to work, manager’s must not just provide that space but ensure that competing priorities don’t begin to take over that space

Consideration to staff career path – train them up, it doesn’t matter if they leave your organisation as long as your investment continues to help children

Provide your staff with all these things and then watch them fly, manager’s need to get away from the idea of being too controlling, learn to trust your staff,

Mary gave the following example to prove her point:

A new family worker belonged to a local church which was looking for a way to be involved in supporting families in the local Dalkeith area. Mary encouraged the worker in her conversations and initial planning with the church members and provided her with the necessary information, training and ongoing support, but it was the worker who ultimately saw the possibilities of partnership, owned the idea and did the work. The result is that now three local churches are part of this partnership and offer a variety of valuable support to families including:

Each Christmas church members work with families to string up Christmas lights and decorations

Provide a counselling service and centre based activities including a toddlers group

Provide a food distribution service for families in need – they have a policy which means that if they hear of a family needing food, that the family must have a food hamper within 24 hours.

20/25

GORDON JACK READER IN SOCIAL WORK – DURHAM UNIVERSITY

OWEN GILL PhD ANTI POVERTY COORDINATOR – BARNARDO’S SOUTH WEST ENGLAND

The practical work of integrating local services and agencies around a shared understanding for better outcomes for children and families which Mary Smith spoke about in Dalkeith was a practical example of the theoretical perspectives Gordon Jack outlined when I met him at Durham University. Gordon spoke about the need for a much more ecologically informed way of understanding the nature of Family and Community Work in our current context. Indeed some of the practical measures which I saw being implemented in Dalkeith illustrated the principles advocated by Gordon Jack and Owen Gill in their book, “The Child & Family in Context: Developing Ecological Practice in Disadvantaged Communities”.

It may be useful to provide the following excerpts in an attempt to illustrate this all important framework which attempts to ask, not simply what the problem is that a family or child might be facing, but rather ‘where’ the problem has its various points of origin in the wider social system within which that family is situated.

Page 3: . . . in our experience, very few professionals focus much of their attention on examining the connections between the well-being of individual children and young people, and the external factors that help to shape that well-being, such as the wider social networks and community resources available to local people, and there is little practice literature to help them to do so.

Page 10: . . . as a consequence ecological practice (like neighbourhood and community work) has to operate within a framework in which power is shared, with an emphasis on listening to and acting upon what individuals and groups of people think is important in their lives and may want to change. This can sometimes sit uneasily with more traditional, individually-oriented ways of working with disadvantaged families where the professional is often deemed to be the expert, offering solutions and ways forward, which can be experienced as profoundly disempowering by individual family members.

Page 95: . . . the starting point for all community capacity building should be where the community is, at a particular moment in time, in terms of its own self defined needs and potential. The ambitions and aims of external agencies can be incorporated into capacity building programmes but these should never be allowed to take precedence over the self identified needs of communities.

Page 147: . . . although there is much talk about the desirability of building the capacity of local communities, there is often little information about how this should happen, and few resources to put it into practice.”

Resources tend to be put into working with existing groups which are seen, in one way or another to represent the views of the whole community

Traditionally the initial community building work in local communities has been seen as one of the main activities of the community development worker, it now tends to be given less prominence. One of the reasons may be that initial capacity building work can be resource intensive, and can take longer than the short time-scale of many government funded initiatives

“Agencies need to build their own capacity to engage with their local communities. This is a point well made by Henderson and Thomas (2002:6): ‘Usually it has been applied to the less powerful side of any partnership. Until recently there have been few examples of building up the capacity of the powerful to listen to the weak’. In broad terms, this capacity to respond on the part of agencies will involve:

Being open and listening to what local communities are saying

Being able to ‘let go’ of some of their professional power

Putting resources into local capacity building

Developing increased understanding of the complexity of whether local groups ‘represent’ the community or only sectional interests within it

Facilitating the involvement of communities and community representatives in different ways by, for instance, scheduling meetings to fit in with the routine of local people and providing adequate childcare cover and expenses so parents can attend community meetings”

21/25

In speaking with Gordon Jack personally, he also raised the following additional points:

A whole range of good community connecting work has to be done before even beginning to talk about funding outcomes. Community Building projects need to be funded for 10 years – time to build relationships and invest in a community!

National evaluation of Sure Start showed that it was the ‘slightly less deprived’ to middle class (not the bottom 20%), who had the better outcomes – those who are more likely to access the service

The new Children’s Centre model has to be careful that it doesn’t become a watered down version of Sure Start with the 20% most deprived still missing out.

Social enterprise is an important part of the mix for a way forward – not the welfare model. Ideas need to be generated locally.

Gordon Jack has also recently published a paper entitled: Place Matters: The Significance of Place Attachments for Children’s Well-Being in which he writes:

Whilst the social work literature rightly pays considerable attention to the importance for children’s development and well-being of their attachments to people, there has been virtually no consideration of the role which is also played by their attachment to place . . .Government policy relevant to these issues, including strategies designed to develop more ‘child friendly communities’, is critically reviewed, together with evidence-based practice recommendations designed to improve the well-being of looked after children by promoting their place attachments.

SURE START CHILDREN’S CENTRES

Across the UK the provision of all early childhood, children’s welfare and family services has, and will continue to be, shaped by the ongoing evolution of the British Government’s ‘Sure Start’ initiative. In turning my attention to further research the history and development of this initiative, as well as to familiarise myself with aspects of its present shape in particular local settings, my questions were shaped by the concerns that Gordon Jack expressed above. I began to be much clearer in my own mind about the necessity of integrating traditional service delivery with forms of effective community development.

Merely ‘breaking down the silos’ to ensure the existence of an integrated service delivery system still does not ensure that those who have traditionally been excluded will find the necessary confidence and relational bridges to actively participate in the services offered at a particular location. Any strategy seeking to be genuinely universal and inclusive must therefore actively include those for whom the traditionally available pathways feel inaccessible. In order to reach more than those which Gordon Jack called the ‘“slightly less deprived” to middle class’ (i.e.,not the bottom 20%), Community Development and other strategies of active community building must be developed so that those families who are most disconnected and disadvantaged can begin to experience a connection to their neighbourhood and to the services available to themselves and their children.

The recent creation of ‘Sure Start Children’s Centres’ has evolved from the earlier Sure Start funded initiatives. More recently, these various hubs of traditional children’s and family service delivery have been incorporated into an attempt to create an even more co-ordinated, integrated phase in the further development of the Sure Start initiative.

Sure Start grew out of a growing recognition that deprivation was blighting the lives of too many children and families in disadvantaged areas. The program was established in 1997, and within two years the first Sure Start Local Programmes were beginning to function within local communities. The mandate of these programs and initiatives was to bring together early education, childcare, health and family support for the benefit of young children (under the age of four) and their families who were living in identified areas of disadvantage. Local programmes were area-based and were to be evaluated according to benchmark outcomes designed to measure the extent to which programs were contributing to the improved health and well-being of families and children from 0-4.

‘Sure Start Children’s Centres’ are the latest step in the development of the Sure Start

22/25

philosophy. Children’s centres are service hubs where children under five years of age and their families are able to access seamless integrated services, information and referral. By 2010 it is anticipated that every community will be served by a Sure Start Children’s Centre which will offer permanent universal provision across the country attempting to ensure that every child gets the best start in life.

The actual shape of particular services available will vary from area to area but may include:

Integrated early education and childcare – all centres offering Early Years provision have a minimum half-time qualified teacher (increasing to full-time within 18 months of the centre opening)

Support for parents – including advice and education on parenting, local childcare options and access to specialist services for families

Child and family health services – ranging from health screening, health visitor services to breast-feeding support

Helping parents into work – with links to the local Jobcentre Plus and training.

The British Government’s vision, set out most recently in the ‘Children’s Plan’, is that every child and young person should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential. Sure Start is at the forefront of transforming the way services are delivered for young children and their families.

The aim of Sure Start Children’s Centres is to improve outcomes for all children. They are a vital part of the Government’s ten-year childcare strategy to enable all families with children to have access to an affordable, flexible, high-quality childcare place for their child.

Local authorities have been given strategic responsibility for the delivery of children’s centres. They are planning the location and development of centres to meet the needs of local communities, in consultation with parents, the private, voluntary and independent sectors, primary care trusts, Jobcentre Plus and other key partners, to deliver a range of services.

From the perspective of my own concerns as expressed above I was particularly heartened to note that Sure Start Children’s Centres are required to actively identify families that may still be marginalised and/or excluded from services and to tailor particular forms of service delivery to the needs of these families and their children. This translates to a strong emphasis on the use of outreach models and home visiting to minimise the incidence of barriers for families who otherwise might be unlikely to visit a centre. As well it ensures the development of strong multi-agency partnerships (including health services) along lines similar to that being developed in Dalkeith by Mary Smith and her team.

A great deal of discussion surrounds the necessity of certain structural characteristics which are regarded as essential to the success of this initiative:

genuinely integrated services the ability of service nodes to function as seamless, one-stop-shops for accurate

assessment, information transfer and referral and the capacity to design and deliver flexible, alternate options for families

These and other characteristics are regularly articulated as prerequisites for success. In my conversations with Gordon Jack and Owen Gill, however, they also saw an equal if not more important need to identify and resource the development of workers who must deliver these flexible, newly integrated and essential services for all families and their children. These characteristics included an ability to work both at a high degree of professional competence within their field or discipline, as well as being able to integrate entrepreneurial practice and a genuine understanding of ecological practice, those systemic realities which shape the lives of families. It is these essentially relational, community embracing skills and abilities which, according to Gordon Jack, will be necessary if the otherwise admirable aspirations of the still emerging Sure Start model is to achieve the full extent of its intentions.

23/25

COMMUNITY GARDENS

- A COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT/SOCIAL CAPITAL BUILDING TOOL

One of the most exciting examples for building social capital that I saw throughout the US, UK and Ireland is the burgeoning of community garden projects: City farms and community gardens are community-managed projects working with people, animals and plants. They range from tiny wildlife gardens to fruit and vegetable plots on housing estates, from community polytunnels to large city farms.

These projects are created by local people seeking to encourage strong community relationships and an awareness of gardening and farming. They provide a wide variety of valuable, much-needed community facilities and services. The benefits that these projects can bring have long been appreciated by individuals and the communities in which they have been established.

A research project was undertaken in 2007 entitled Northeast England: The true value of community farms and gardens. Following is a summary of the findings:

Community farms & gardens provide important social opportunities and can be effective in tackling social exclusion

Attending such projects can restore feelings of worth and rebuild the confidence of clients and volunteers

Plants and animals play an important role in engaging people and can be used to instil a sense of responsibility

Many projects act as stepping stones, opening up future possibilities to disaffected young people

The presence of food growing experiences on our doorsteps can help tackle growing obesity problems through exercise opportunities and wiser dietary choices

Many are actively involved in tackling environmental issues

The findings on gardening correspond with other studies on its therapeutic value and prove that gardening can be a rewarding activity for all ages

A VISIT TO SEVEN STORIES – NEWCASTLE ON TYNE

Some people say there are only seven stories in the world but a thousand different ways of telling them. Seven Stories is about the thousand ways.

www.sevenstories.org

Seven Stories aims to enhance the quality of life and opportunity for children, young people and families by celebrating and promoting access to children’s literature through a wide variety of high quality experiences. The Doorstep Community Seven Stories is situated to the east of the city centre, adjacent to Byker and Walker wards. The Walker ward is ranked number 1 as the most deprived ward in Newcastle, with the neighbouring ward of Byker ranked 3. Both wards fall amongst the 10% most deprived in England. Almost ½ of dependent children in these communities live in families with no working adult and there is a high proportion of lone female parents. Poor health and limiting long term illness is high amongst adults of working age. In Byker the proportion of residents from minority ethnic backgrounds, many of whom are asylum seekers, is above average for Newcastle and rising.

24/25

Seven Stories provides a welcoming creative place for families, children, schools and preschools to visit, one of the staff members reported that it has become a favourite place for single dads to bring their children on weekend visits

Travel by Book – an outreach project

Travel by Book aims to provide pathways into Seven Stories for children, young people and families to overcome access inequalities, support confident reading for pleasure and influence best practice regionally and nationally.

The principles defined in the project are:

Promoting the value and enjoyment of reading and children’s literature in communities across Tyneside, promoting the centre as a valuable and welcoming resource and broadening access to Seven Stories and its activities for harder-to-reach groups

Building and extending partnerships with other community based organisations in the learning, literacy development, arts and social care sectors to create long-term and sustainable links

Developing a range of creative and innovative methods to engage with project participants, bringing books to life by using different art forms and introducing items from our Collection

Effective evaluation of the project by commissioning an external evaluator to undertake formative, process and final evaluation, measuring and analysing the effectiveness of the approaches used and communicating these findings with fellow educators, practitioners and policymakers

Information provided by the Seven Stories Travelling Book Report

CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS In attempting to summarise all that was learned from my various conversations and experiences whilst travelling through the US, the UK and Ireland I find myself arriving at the following conclusions and practical recommendations: 1. Family Services most concerned with PREVENTION are those which actively

pursue local community-specific and inclusive strategies of community development and community capacity building

These services identify the best possible pathway to connect families with strong, nurturing connections in their community. These services are attempting to implement the wealth of research which indicates quite simply that those children and families which are most connected to their communities in the form of strong bonds of belonging and civic mutual responsibility display the best long-term outcomes.

Consciously or not, these services are directly tackling the challenge at the centre of service provision. On the one hand, the increased complexity of life in our current society brings with it increased pressures and a greater degree of alienation, disconnection and dysfunction in families and relationships. This, in turn demands a greater degree of professionalism and a greatly increased knowledge and skill base for family workers who are faced with these presenting issues. However, as Robert Putnam, Gordon Jack and others have clearly indicated, this increase in professionalism can actually contribute to the decrease in social capital and community connectedness. RECOMMENDATION

Family Services, as a component of the increased necessity for highly professionalized and skilled approaches to working with families and children, should adopt the broadest possible approach to the prevention of adverse outcomes for children. This means actively developing an integrated service model including traditional service delivery and targeted strategies of community development. Family Support should be conceived as a professional service which

25/25

includes strategies for assisting the enhanced connection of communities. Community Development should be embraced as a necessary form of preventative family support. 2. Family Services actively pursuing local, community-specific and inclusive

strategies of Community Development have adopted an ECOLOGICAL PRACTICE framework

These services naturally complement their strengths-based approach to working with individuals and families with an ‘assets-based’ ecosystemic understanding of the broader community as positive relationships available to assist family functioning and individual growth. Such an ecological integration of these two traditionally disparate models of service allows for greater flexibility and increases the overall scope and reach of resources which can be offered to families. For children and families who make contact with services, this approach allows for a fuller appreciation of their needs within the context of their community, as well as a number of efficient pathways for connecting them back into their community. Similarly, it assists services to make contact with those 20% who might otherwise remain inaccessible through non-stigmatizing soft entry points and outreach initiatives. RECOMMENDATION

An integrated understanding of Family Services which aims to work preventatively with families must adopt an explicitly ecological/ecosystemic philosophy which determines all aspects of service design, implementation, and evaluation. As well as direct community development strategies, services must include explicit cross agency processes for appropriate information exchange, co-operation and case planning to enhance preventative outcomes for families and individuals. (The Integration Team operating in Dalkeith under the leadership of Dr Mary Smith is an example of such a model) 3. Family Services actively seeking to increase the social capital of

communities as a preventative means of contributing to the welfare of families and children, also develop a high degree of SOCIAL ENTREPRENUARIAL skill and understanding

As Jim Diers was at pains to emphasize, genuinely transformative social enterprise combines two aspects of professionalism: solid, detailed planning processes and governance procedures with a creative and innovative willingness to experiment with the possibilities of social entrepreneurship to create new pathways of community connection. Family services which were achieving the kind of integrated preventive services described above had also actively embraced socially entrepreneurial ways of attempting to organize, create and manage themselves as ventures seeking to bring about social change. (Eg. Bromley by Bow Centre, East London). By contributing directly to the creation of living, vibrant communities these Family Worker/Social Entrepreneurs place themselves in the midst of enormous synergies and possibilities for collaboration which can be brought to bear for the benefit of families and children. Many of the professionals interviewed encouraged thinking outside the traditional ‘welfare’ delivery model as a way of breaking the cycle of intergenerational unemployment. RECOMMENDATION

Service managers, key leaders and Family Workers generally should be trained and/or provided with access to models of Social Entrepreneurship. This might take the form of cross agency mentoring, training and collaboration. This is one area where Dr Mary Smith’s approach to managing staff either assists or hinders them to take wings and fly.