Skills for Neighbourhood Work

1. Skills for Neighbourhood Work

2. Original Assumptions • Community workers’ practice was in one or two neighbourhoods 2. High level of autonomy 3. No pressures to demonstrate effectiveness

3. Relevance • An essential part of the capacity building ‘portfolio’. “A strategic approach to capacity building needs to be flexible enough to cope with local differences and difficulties.” (‘Regenerating Neighbourhoods: A Critical Look at the Role of Community Capacity Building’, Sarah Banks & Felicity Shenton, Local Economy, 2001, Vol. 16 no. 4, pp.286-298) 2. Neighbourhood work can respond to new demands, and adjust to different kinds of community and issues

4. Neighbourhood work is part of community development’s practice-theory 4. Neighbourhood work can connect communities with policy-making - Do policy-makers understand how neighbourhoods work and how they need to be supported? - Can policy-makers respond to austerity measures and cuts? ‘Sense of abandonment’ (‘Reality, Resources, Resilience: regeneration in a recession’, Andy Milne & Derek Rankine, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2013)

5. Skills Framework • Aims to make the tasks of the practitioner explicit and specific • Helps worker see, and respond to, the varying, changing needs of a group • Emphasises importance of planning in neighbourhood work • Encourages workers to stand back from day-to-day practice – take stock

6. The Neighbourhood Work Process • Entering the neighbourhood • Getting to know the neighbourhood • What next? Needs, goals and roles • Making contacts and bringing people together • Forming and building organisations • Helping to clarify goals and priorities • Keeping the organisation going • Dealing with friends and enemies • Leavings and endings

7. Choice of role Not a once and for all choice Choice will be determined primarily by the stages of the neighbourhood work process - More active/ directive when helping a group form - Less active/ more non-directive when a group is up and running or when a worker is planning to stop working with a group

8. Role Directiveness Channelling – strongly directive Funnelling – considerably directive Scanning – mildly directive Non-directiveness Worker as ‘encourager’, ‘guide’, ‘enabler’. Emphasis on providing information and on questioning Galvanising/ inspiring local people Focusing Clarifying Summarising Gatekeeping Mediating Informing

9. Concluding thoughts • Neighbourhood work can be responsive to changing contexts and issues, e.g: - Conflict resolution - Importance of communal cooperation (‘Together. The rituals, pleasures and politics of cooperation’, Richard Sennett, Yale University Press, 2012)

10. 2. Continuing importance of the neighbourhood to local people. And the importance to them of public services. “ Working in neighbourhoods is often a mix of activities outside institutional control. But institutions, such as local authorities, still play a crucial role in mobilising and responding to citizens and harnessing their contributions.” (‘Working in neighbourhoods, active citizenship and localism,’ Liz Richardson, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2012) - Training and learning opportunities for local people - Potential of community practice