Understanding Social Networks in Neighbourhoods

The Young Foundation is working with the Centre for Collaborative Excellence (CCE) to develop innovative social network mapping projects in neighbourhoods. The projects aim to improve community engagement and empowerment and improve local service delivery, by mapping networks of relationships between residents, service providers, public agencies and local authorities.

The projects are based on the Social Network Analysis (SNA) research methodology, which has been successfully used in a number of UK public sector projects to support improvements in collaboration and partnership working within and between public agencies. The Young Foundation and CCE are working together to extend this method to partnership working between public agencies and communities.

Social Network Analysis identifies the networks of influence and trust that flow through and between organisations, partnerships and communities, and the individuals that hold pivotal positions within these networks. It is often the case that these individuals play a critically important role in sharing information, innovation or decision making, to the extent that they can determine organisational successes or failures. Yet they may not hold senior posts, be immediately recognisable in organisational hierarchies or fulfill an identifiable role in the community.

The mapping process is based on the concept that in any organisation, collaborative working situation or community, there are two parallel worlds at work. The first is one of authority, based on clear hierarchies and power relationships, formal rules, bureaucratic procedures and transactional traffic. The second is one of trust, through which informal information and understandings are transmitted and a good portion of the real work is done. In many cases, managers and senior decision makers understand the world of authority and often fail to recognise the value and influence of networks of trust.

For example a survey could identify who the key leaders are, and the key counsellors or coaches, the key problem solvers and the key “rising stars”. Over the past five years, Jeremy Hawkins of CCE (in collaboration with Dr Karen Stephenson one of the world’s leading exponents of SNA) has been involved in projects with local authorities and public agency partnerships working across the following areas:

• single issue areas such as domestic abuse, burglary, and anti-social behaviour
• improving multi-agency collaboration among Local Strategic Partnerships
• supporting the development of County Sport Partnerships
• working with local authorities to support the development of effective Local Area Agreements and neighbourhood regeneration initiatives.

We have engaged two Borough Councils in using Social Network Analysis. The first project is with the West Norfolk Borough Council, which assisted King's Lynn Neighbourhood Management team to map relationships between service providers and public agencies and residents on a housing estate in the town.  Relationships between the different groups were mapped in order to understand how communication between residents and service providers could be improved. The second project is with Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council. This project is using SNA to explore the relationships between different stakeholders involved in the Secondary Transformation Agenda. Once the analysis is complete we will identify how different stakeholders are connected, how informal and formal networks operate, the strength of these networks and the role they play in supporting local social innovation.

For more information about this project contact melissa.magallanes(AT)youngfoundation.org or Jeremy Hawkins at CCE on lushai(AT)ntlworld.com