Cohesion Counts

Achieving our Vision

Achieving our Vision for Integration and Cohesion

We agreed a definition of cohesion for the project which was very close to the one described in The Commission on Integration and Cohesion’s ‘Our Shared Future’. This focuses on a vision of society where people are committed to what they have in common rather than what is different.

Our definition says that community cohesion is what must happen in all communities to enable different groups of people to get on well together. A key component is integration which is essential for groups to accommodate one another. This felt very relevant to us as an organisation and for other partners on our Steering Group because we are creating new build developments in regeneration areas and it is very important to us that people want to live in these places long into the future.

Our vision of an integrated and cohesive community is based on three foundations, and three keys ways of living together:

Foundations:

Key ways of living together:

• Key ways of living together 1 – Shared aspirations for their area and a sense of pride and belonging
• Key ways of living together 2 – A focus on what new and existing communities have in common, alongside a recognition of the value of diversity
• Key ways of living together 3 – Strong and positive relationships between people from different backgrounds

Foundation 1 – People from different backgrounds having similar life opportunities

We feel that it is important that:

Different ethnic and socio economic groups all have access to good quality housing. For us this means building a mix of sizes, types, tenures and designs in each development so that no groups are excluded.

Socially rented allocations policies do not disadvantage groups or exclude them from housing.

Scheme designs do not make visible distinctions between properties of different tenures.

Marketing is not directed at any particular group.

Foundation 2 – People knowing their rights and responsibilities when living in a particular place – people know what everybody expects of them, and what they can expect in return

Our projects picked up examples where people were not clear about their rights and responsibilities, such as young people who did not realise their behaviour was intimidating older people who were frightened to use the shops or communities and individuals behaving in a very negative way when new ‘different’ people move into their area.

Our work showed that this could be changed – a successful project in this context was the philosophy project which is ideal for discussing and working through different perspectives on an issue.

The Community Induction Project showed that it was important to be very clear with residents who act in an anti social way and spell out the consequences of being hostile to incomers and at the same time to be clear with the new residents what support they can expect from the agencies in the area.

Foundation 3 – People trusting one another and trusting local service providers to act fairly

There was an issue identified through the research projects that allocation of houses at one particular new development were not seen to be fair. Local people perceived that they had only been offered to Asian households. This was not the case although only Asian people had taken up the offers. This issue was brought up years after the scheme had been allocated, indicating how long such perceptions can persist. In reality, the allegations were unfounded but had been picked up by the local press at the time – this highlighted for us the absolute need to be fair but also to ensure communications are clear and transparent.

Three key ways of living together are:

Key ways of living together 1 – Shared aspirations for their area and a sense of pride and belonging

Our evaluation of the projects was framed around the National Indicators (NI) for Community Cohesion.

• NI 1: Perception that the local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together.
• NI 2: Sense of belonging to the immediate neighbourhood.
• NI 5: Satisfaction with local area as a place to live.

It was apparent that the projects which involved shared activities had the potential to affect people’s perceptions of these indicators.

The projects that had the greatest impact on improving perceptions of the local area as a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together, were the ones which included direct discussion about this issue. (See the Bridge Building Between Communities project)

The projects all tended to increase a sense of belonging to the local area. The dance project which linked into a borough wide project was particularly effective at increasing the sense of belonging to the borough.

The projects which had the most impact on area satisfaction were the ones which either used focal points of the area for activities or which focused on discussion about the area. The dance project, which focused on the meaning of ‘home and friends’, had less impact on neighbourhood satisfaction.

The conclusion of these findings is that projects should be tailored to address the local community cohesion issues as the impacts are varied.

Key ways of living together 2 – A focus on what new and existing communities have in common, alongside a recognition of the value of diversity

Most of the projects actively explored the ideas of diversity and most of the participants displayed more accepting attitudes towards diversity after being involved.

It is possible that post project evaluation could have been affected by participants being more aware of which views were acceptable. Equally interesting were the comments which came out about commonality – which the projects other than Bridge Building did not actively seek to explore.

‘It surprised me that we all think alike each other about crime and that, because in other ways we’re all really different’
Spiral Dance

‘The people from the other estate were into football and followed Oldham Athletic too!!’
Limeside and Clarkwell Linking Project

Clarkwell adults were impressed with the Limeside Community Centre and wanted to know how to run one themselves. The Clarkwell adults recognised that this was a good way to open up a neutral debate about something they had in common – their community centres.

These findings suggest that when communities are brought together to do activities it is almost a natural process to look for commonalities.

Key ways of living together 3 – Strong and positive relationships between people from different backgrounds

The impact of the projects on this was measured by National Indicator 1: Perception that the local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together.

All the projects showed that bringing people together to do shared activities will build relationships in positive ways.

Sometimes the projects enabled people to talk about differences in ways they had not been able to previously. This was agreed however that this was not a short term process and had to be done over a long time period as trust built up between participants.

Providing conflict awareness training where relationships have broken down will empower people to deal with conflict better. Participants in this project identified their existing strategies for dealing with conflict through the training and were therefore better able to draw on them when the situation required it.

Our experience suggests that there is a lot of willingness to build relationships with people from different backgrounds, but sometimes the opportunities to do so do not present themselves.