Without romanticising, perceptions of bad neighbourhoods or estates are almost always exaggerated - mostly by people who don't know the area. Taxi drivers are a good example; drivers will often comment on how ‘notorious' the place is and reel off a suitable anecdote about stabbings or drunk residents. (My dad was a taxi driver, so I mean no offence to the profession!)

Perceptions can unfairly taint an estate and misrepresent residents' quality of life. Lots of people are happy where they live - no matter how notorious - a feeling often correlated with having friends and family live nearby.

However, things aren't always rosy. As part of our small estate project, we have been trying to unpick the nature of entrenched deprivation on small housing estates across England. We're doing this by talking to local people and professional involved in delivering local services. These discussions have thrown up an interesting issue; when you talk to local people about local problems, they will often focus on anti-social behaviour, crime, street lighting or unkempt public spaces. In contrast, when you speak to professionals, issues around the family and parenting often dominate.

As a researcher and former community worker this is a little uncomfortable. I know that residents often talk about what to me are ‘surface' issues; things that impact on quality of life, but don't change the long term opportunities for local people. How do we start a conversation about what we have determined to be the ‘underlying local issues'?

A colleague and I recently took some of our findings about family and parenting to a group of residents on one of our estates. As expected, it was a difficult conversation that had to be handled sensitively. Some residents found it difficult to talk about the issues; others felt it was not their place to. My overwhelming feeling was that these just aren't the kind of conversations residents are used to having with people like me. Nonetheless, the session threw up some interesting ideas and the residents were really enthusiastic about the project. We will soon be taking our findings to young people, as well as parents. I am eager to find out what they think.

This works coincides with Yvonne Roberts's fantastic publication, ‘Grit' (Young Foundation, 2009). In the future, when we want talk to residents beyond issues of crime & grime, I want to translate some of the research in this book as a precursor to any conversation about local issues. I think this will help provoke thought and debate amongst residents about broader issues of resilience and achievement, which can then be applied to very sensitive questions about local life. Perhaps this will be one way of going beyond the ‘cleaner, safer, greener' agenda in neighbourhood work.