Project aims

The overall aim of the neighbourhoods and community empowerment strand was to accelerate the understanding of how local authorities could, through their community engagement and neighbourhood working practices, increase the wellbeing of their residents.

The project aimed to:

• scope the extent to which existing work on neighbourhood and community empowerment was likely to impact on wellbeing
• support partner local authorities to learn from each others’ experience and the relevant experience of other agencies
• develop a proposal for evaluating the impact on wellbeing of existing neighbourhood initiatives
• explore options for developing local initiatives aimed at improving wellbeing through neighbourhood working and community empowerment

The Research Base
Research has been carried out in various countries, including the USA and Switzerland, which points to a link between democracy and empowerment at the local level and wellbeing. In one study Robert Putman found a significant association between social engagement and happiness. His book ‘Bowling Alone’ argued that monthly club meetings, church attendance, volunteering and entertaining each have the happiness equivalents of a doubling of income. He also estimated that belonging to an association – a club or a neighbourhood group – can add 10 years to your life.

This research has not been replicated in the UK and if it were to be taken forward, the key question would be whether the experience of the UK – with its very different cultural values and attitudes towards community and individualism – mirrors Putnam’s findings in the US.

Questions also emerge from the research about the relationships between social capital; social contact at the very local level; residents’ belief that they can influence decisions; residents’ willingness to take action, and wellbeing.

The Young Foundation’s work on belonging and community cohesion suggests that the way the people make contact with people from other social groups, faiths, races or ethnic groups is key to increasing acceptance of people with different identities, and relates strongly to community cohesion and the extent to which people feel that they ‘belong’ in an area.

Three hypotheses were developed about the link between neighbourhood working, community empowerment and wellbeing:

1. that wellbeing is higher in areas where residents can influence decisions affecting their neighbourhood
2. that wellbeing is higher amongst people who have regular contact with their neighbours
3. that wellbeing is higher in areas where residents have the confidence to exercise control over local circumstances.

These hypotheses were tested in the report, Neighbourliness + Empowerment = Wellbeing: is there a formula for happy communities?

The UK policy and practice context
For decades, agencies working at the local level have been lobbied by residents, as individuals and collectively, who have grievances about the state of the very local areas they live in or who want to advocate for neighbourhood improvements. In recent years this agenda has been of increasing interest to government.

In 2005 the government announced its intention to explore options for increasing neighbourhood involvement in services. In spite of being heavily trailed as strongly devolutionary, the measures in the 2006 Local Government White Paper Strong and prosperous communities encouraged, rather than compelled, local authorities to explore options for increasing community empowerment and neighbourhood working. The Young Foundation’s Transforming Neighbourhoods programme has worked with 15 local authorities. One of the findings of the work was that the key impact of the White Paper is the debate it has created, raising the profile of community empowerment and neighbourhood working in English local authorities.

Local authorities are also increasingly exploring the relationship between pro-environmental activities and community engagement. This is both using the environment as a basis for engaging residents (for example around activities in schools bringing together parents and children, or through initiative like Fairtrade weeks or farmers’ markets), and by using existing community engagement infrastructure – such as residents groups or area forums – to promote changing behaviour and lifestyles.

The UK Government’s sustainable development strategy Securing the Future puts a strong emphasis on involving people through the Community Action 2020 – Together We Can programme. This is intended as a catalyst for community action, building on the legacy of community-based action in Agenda 21 and other local initiatives.

Neighbourhood working and community empowerment in Hertfordshire, Manchester and South Tyneside

All three Local Wellbeing Project partner local authorities have strong examples of community empowerment and neighbourhood working, which plays out in different structures both because of the nature of the local authorities, but also because of the focus each has chosen for their involvement in the Local Wellbeing Project.

South Tyneside
South Tyneside has strong neighbourhood working methods with a stress on the local leadership role of elected members (which has recently been awarded Beacon status). The local authority works with Northumbria University to carry out participatory appraisals in very deprived areas. In the local authorities’ strategic approach there is a strong emphasis on developing a positive sense of place and belonging amongst its residents.

Manchester
Mainstream neighbourhood working with stress on local leadership role of elected members. The ‘sense of place’ programme brings together community cohesion and community empowerment approaches, and runs alongside a strong corporate emphasis on re-enforcing positive norms of behaviour and increasing resident empowerment to take action to stop anti-social behaviour. This includes big participatory events promoting behaviour change, alongside smaller initiatives such as green walks in deprived areas.

Hertfordshire
The county council has set up six children’s centres, primarily in areas of high deprivation, and plans to open another 42 by 2008. Children’s centres have been planned to be co-terminus with the 48 ‘natural’ communities mapped by the county. The Children’s Centre model includes extensive community engagement and as such mirrors the other partner local authorities’ neighbourhood working. Hertfordshire also focus its community outreach on its mental health week ‘Feelin’ good in Hertfordshire’ which has a particular emphasis on working with schools.

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