What can social work and social care learn from asset-based community development?
Summary
TLDRThe video script from 'Exchange Exchanges' at Cardiff University discusses the integration of community work in social care. It emphasizes the historical connection between social work and community development, the importance of an asset-based approach, and the need for social work to embrace community contexts. The session includes case studies and a call for practitioners to reconnect with community development to foster social change, empowerment, and address inequalities.
Takeaways
- 📚 The session focused on the exchange of knowledge between practitioners, academics, and policy makers, emphasizing the importance of community work in social care.
- 🤝 The discussion highlighted the historical connection between social work and community development, and the need to reconnect these fields in current practice.
- 🌟 Keynote speaker Fiona, a professor from Swansea University, stressed the alignment of social work and community development in values, theories, and practices.
- 🔍 Fiona's research into the history of social work revealed that community development was intrinsic to early social work approaches, as seen with pioneers like Jane Adams.
- 📉 Keith Popple's paper critiqued the conditional nature of community development under government agendas, suggesting a tension between top-down initiatives and local needs.
- 📈 The paper from the Australian Journal of Social Work discussed the retreat of community development in social work and the need to reintegrate it as a method of social change.
- 🏘️ Dave Horton from ACE shared the organization's asset-based approach to community development, emphasizing the importance of local ownership and co-production.
- 🏛️ The KAYA Heritage project, a collaboration between ACE and Cardiff University, was presented as an example of an asset-based community development initiative leveraging local heritage.
- 📖 The session concluded with breakout room discussions that surfaced themes of connectivity, asset identification, and the importance of storytelling in community development.
- 🌱 The power of stories and the 'most significant change' approach was emphasized as a method for capturing individual experiences and community transformation.
- 🔑 The importance of considering the wider community context in social work was a recurring theme, along with the potential of the Social Care and Well-being Act in Wales to foster community-focused approaches.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the session at Exchange Exchanges based at Cardiff University?
-The session is focused on community work and its connection to social work, aiming to exchange information and knowledge between practitioners, academics, experts by experience, and policy makers.
Why is community development considered important in the context of social work?
-Community development is important in social work as it aligns with values of social change, empowerment, addressing inequalities, and is considered an integral method of social work as per the International Federation definition.
What is the historical connection between community development and social work?
-Community development has been an intrinsic part of social work since its origins, with early social work reformers like Jane Adams advocating for collective approaches and community involvement in social work practices.
What does Keith Popple's paper 'Community Development in the 21st Century: A Case of Conditional Development' discuss?
-The paper by Keith Popple discusses the context of community development under the New Labour agenda, highlighting the tension between top-down prescribed community development agendas and local participatory processes.
How does the paper from the Australian Journal of Social Work view the current state of community development in social work?
-The paper laments the loss of community development in social work practice and emphasizes the need to bring it back as a method of resisting and critiquing government agendas, and supporting local initiatives.
What is the 'Bank of Ideas' initiative mentioned in the transcript?
-The 'Bank of Ideas' is an initiative that showcases asset-based community development through the story of a town in New Zealand called Bull, which rebranded its local businesses using the name 'Bull' to capitalize on its unique identity.
What is the role of ACE (Alien Kairos Ely) in the community of Ely and Cairo on the west of Cardiff?
-ACE is a community organization that aims to put the community in the hands of local people, enabling them to manage projects, employ staff, run buildings, and generate income through an asset-based approach.
What is the significance of the ACE organization's philosophy of being place-based and rooted in the local community?
-The philosophy of being place-based and rooted in the local community means that ACE bases all its work on a network of relationships and principles of social capital, which not only forms the infrastructure for their work but is also an outcome in itself.
How does the ACE organization challenge the narrative that their community is a problem that needs solving by outsiders?
-ACE challenges this narrative by adopting an asset-based approach that focuses on the strengths and resources within the community, enabling local people to contribute to solutions and build community from within.
What is the 'Kaya Heritage' project and how does it relate to community development?
-The 'Kaya Heritage' project is an asset-based initiative that builds on the rich heritage of the Ely and Cairo area in Cardiff, aiming to foster a different sense of place for the communities and provide opportunities for education, social capital building, and skills development.
What are the key outcomes of the 'Kaya Heritage' project?
-The key outcomes of the 'Kaya Heritage' project include a large number of active participants, the involvement of various institutional partners, the creation of wider social networks, and progression of individuals to higher education from an area with historically low university attendance.
How does the 'Most Significant Change' storytelling approach contribute to the monitoring and evaluation of community projects?
-The 'Most Significant Change' approach involves collecting individual stories of change, where people reflect on the most significant changes they experienced as a result of their involvement in the project. These stories are then used to understand and draw learning from the project's impact on individuals.
Outlines
📚 Introduction to Community Exchange and Social Work History
The session begins with a warm welcome and an introduction to the Exchange Exchange platform based at Cardiff University, designed for knowledge sharing among practitioners, academics, and policymakers. The speaker expresses excitement about discussing community work, a topic central to social care. Fiona, the session chair, and Alison, a professor from Swansea University with a background in social work and community development, emphasize the historical connection between social work and community development, citing the International Federation's definition of social work that includes social change and empowerment. They also touch on the fluctuating presence of community development in social work practice over time, particularly noting its retreat in countries like Australia.
🌐 The Role of Community Development in the 21st Century
This paragraph delves into Keith Popple's 2006 paper, which critiques the conditional nature of community development under the New Labour government in the UK. Popple discusses the tension between top-down government agendas and community-led initiatives. The paper also addresses the language of deprivation often used in community development, contrasting it with an asset-based approach. A second paper from the Australian Journal of Social Work is mentioned, which calls for community development to reclaim its space in resisting government agendas and supporting local initiatives. The importance of viewing community development as a resistant space is highlighted, echoing Paulo Freire's ideas on social justice and human rights.
🏘️ Asset-Based Community Development in Practice
Dave Horton, a community worker from Ely and Cairo, west of Cardiff, introduces the community organization ACE, which focuses on asset-based community development. He discusses the history of the area, the loss of traditional employment, and the resulting social and economic challenges. Horton emphasizes ACE's philosophy of challenging the narrative that views the community as a problem to be solved by outsiders. Instead, ACE promotes an asset-based approach that values local contributions and co-production, aiming to shift the community's self-perception from passive recipients to active participants in social change.
📈 The Transformative Power of Stories in Community Development
The speaker discusses the importance of storytelling in community development, using the example of how the community of Ely has been stigmatized by past riots. The organization is working to reshape the narrative by highlighting positive aspects of the community's heritage and individual contributions. The 'most significant change' method is used to collect and share personal stories of transformation, which has become integral to their monitoring and evaluation processes. The story of Billy, a volunteer turned staff member, exemplifies the personal growth and community impact that can result from this approach.
🏛️ Unearthing Community Heritage: The KAYA Heritage Project
Ollie, a lecturer in archaeology, describes the KAYA Heritage Project, a collaboration between ACE, Cardiff University, and other partners. The project leverages the rich but underused heritage assets of the Ely and Cairo areas to foster a different sense of place and provide educational and social opportunities. The project has involved the community in various activities, from research to conservation efforts, with the goal of breaking down barriers to higher education and promoting local heritage.
🤝 Co-Production and Community Engagement in Heritage Projects
The paragraph focuses on the co-production principles of the KAYA Heritage Project, which involves community members in all aspects of the project, from research to site management. The project has been successful in engaging a wide range of participants and partners, creating social networks and enabling progression to higher education for some individuals. The project outcomes highlight the mutual benefits of long-term commitment and the power of community engagement in heritage preservation and promotion.
💡 Reflecting on Community Development and Social Work Integration
In the final segment, participants are encouraged to reflect on the presentations in breakout rooms, considering the connectivity between community development and social work. The discussion aims to identify key messages or implications for social work and social care practices. The feedback from the breakout rooms reveals themes such as the importance of connectivity, the need for a compendium of best practices, the challenges of short-term funding, and the potential for a more integrated approach between social workers and community development workers.
🌟 Embracing the Collective Power of Community and Social Work
The closing remarks of the session underscore the value of community engagement and the potential for social work to reconnect with its community-focused roots. The presentations have sparked thought and discussion on the importance of community assets, the role of stories in transformation, and the need for a more collaborative approach between social workers and community development practitioners. The session concludes with a commitment to continue exploring these themes and their implications for future practices.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Community Work
💡Social Care Agenda
💡Community Development
💡Social Work
💡Social Change
💡Empowerment
💡Social Exclusion
💡Asset-Based Community Development
💡Co-Production
💡Holistic Approach
💡Cultural Heritage
💡Social Capital
💡Most Significant Change
Highlights
The session emphasizes the importance of exchanging information between practitioners, academics, and policy makers in the field of community work and social care.
Fiona, a professor of social work, discusses the historical connection between social work and community development, highlighting their shared values and practices.
The International Federation definition of social work is cited, emphasizing social change, empowerment, and addressing inequalities as key components.
Fiona explores the waxing and waning connection between social work and community development over time, particularly in Australia.
Keith Popple's paper is introduced, critiquing the conditional nature of community development under government agendas.
The tension between prescribed community development and local participatory processes is discussed, with a focus on the constraints and language of deprivation.
A call to bring community development back into practice is made, with a focus on resisting and critiquing government agendas.
Dave Horton introduces the ACE organization, based in Cardiff, and its focus on community development and asset-based approaches.
The importance of place-based roots in local communities and the role of social capital in community development are highlighted.
Dave discusses the shift from a deficit-based approach to an asset-based approach, focusing on co-production and the contributions of community members.
The role of storytelling in community development is explored, with examples of how it can lead to personal and community transformation.
Ollie, a lecturer in archaeology, discusses the KAYA Heritage project, which applies asset-based community development principles to heritage sites.
The project's focus on fostering a different sense of place and the use of co-production principles in all activities is explained.
Examples of community involvement in research, education, and conservation efforts are provided, showcasing the project's impact.
The use of storytelling in monitoring and evaluation processes to capture individual experiences of change is introduced.
The session concludes with a reflection on the importance of connectivity, asset identification, and the potential for social work to learn from community development practices.
Transcripts
welcome to today's session
and welcome to exchange exchanges
as you know based at cardiff university
and
as the title suggests it's about
exchanging
information and knowledge between
practitioners academics
experts by experience and policy makers
so
really pleased to have you here i'm
particularly excited today to be talking
about community work something that is
very close to my heart
and something that you know we really
really want to see
um back on the social care agenda
thank you very much i'm going to hand
over to
flaherty and really looking forward to
today's session thank you fiona and
thank you very much alison um just echo
your comments about how wonderful it is
to be at a session that's about
community development
and social work so thank you to the
organisers for having me
as part of this session so um i'm
kicking off and i've
decided to focus in on that question
about what can social work
learn from community development and
community development from social work
and come at it
from that angle so just to preface my
comments i
come from a community development
background so i work at swansea
university
um professor of social work social care
um i'm australian i'm actually
i'm dialing in from australia at the
moment which is where i've been since
the lockdown so
i'm coming from i'm here in australia um
so my background was community
development so i worked as a community
development worker before i did my
social work training
so i went to do social work and then
from social work went back and practiced
as a community development worker
so i for me social work and community
development
have always been connected they've been
connected in my mind connected in values
connected in theories connected in
practice
and certainly when i read the
international federation definition of
social work
i'm talking about social change
empowerment
addressing inequalities and looking at
some of the recent global agendas
in my mind community development is very
you know firmly
in that agenda and an important method
of social work
i've been i'm interested in my
particular kind of research area i've
been interested
in social work history um particularly
the history of
sociology and community development in
social work
and when i go back to look at some of
that history and read
some of the early kind of pioneer social
work
writers so um reformers like jane adams
and alice solomon from germany and
and others from across the planet in my
reading
community development was always an
intrinsic part of the social work
approach and social work ideas um so it
can be traced back to the origins of
social work where community development
or collective approaches
were in the mix of what it is that there
was this thing called social work
and david burnham's written a really
good paper called selective
memory a note on social work his
geography
and he cites um professor vivian cree
who wrote that in 1900 social work was
anything
and everything from case work of the
charitable organization societies to the
social
reform-based settlement movement to the
institutional care provided by a large
number of the poor laws
and voluntary agencies so in my mind as
a somebody who's
keen on community development i think
it's really important to be reminded of
that history and anchored
to that history of community development
and social work
and certainly if we look at different
theories and paradigms
even if you're working on an individual
orientation
there's an agenda for social change
whether it's
radical or transformative but over time
that connection between
social work and community development
has really waxed and waned
and i've seen that in my own country of
australia where i've
done my practice we've had periods where
community development was to the fore
in social work and then when it's
retreated
and certainly i think we're in a period
now um in some countries like australia
where it has retreated
so places that were really strong on
community development
where you were allowed to be part of
supporting social action
as well as locality-based community
development it's shrunk to
a role of case management which is
important but
that you know ability to attend to
social contextual factors and
work for the person and the environment
has really shrunk
so when i was thinking about what i
could offer as a kind of
preface to hearing from the
practitioners we're going to hear from
the case examples
is i went to the social work literature
and i trawled through and i just picked
out two papers
about community development so two
papers from social work journals
one from the british journal of social
work written by
keith popple so he's a professor of
social work
at london south back university and
author of the book
analyzing community work from 1995
and he wrote a paper in 2006
entitled community development in the
21st century
a case of conditional development so i
want to just overview some of his ideas
and then pick up a paper from the
australian journal of social work that
was published
late last year online but in print
in 220 and these are writers who are
really lamenting
what's happened in social work with the
loss of community development
and that it's really important that we
pull it back into practice
so first of all keith popple's paper
um he's he has a pattern of doing
critical commentary on community
development
and sort of a bit of an assessment about
where it's up to so he wrote this paper
six years into the the new century
um and he approached it by doing a
painting a picture of
contextual factors so labor was in power
there was accelerated globalization so
looking at the geopolitical context
in which community development is being
located and really
talking about the fact that under the
new labour agenda um particularly the
banner of social exclusion
there was this real thrust forward for
community development
programs were being funded monies were
flowing an expansion of schemes
but in his critical assessment of it and
he draws on the works of three
community development writers to pull
his case together
but he analyzes what he calls
conditional community development
so from his assessment community
development
having two objectives
yes i've just been asked to put the
names of the papers in the chat and i'll
do that
when i finished um so
two objectives for community development
at this time in 2006.
so one is community development to
support local initiatives local
participatory processes
and supporting and building civil
society and then on the other hand
community development um in a more
prescriptive way so a government agenda
whether it's
um talking about as a social exclusion
or promoting health
or neighborhood regeneration but it's
kind of
top down to use that language community
development agendas
and what he was pointing to in his
debate um or his argument
is that some of the top down prescribed
community development
it's inherent in that is constraint so
there's a tension
between what is prescribed and
and what is kind of necessary and what
is what is
um what local people wish and want to do
he also talks about the language so the
language of the time
being the language of particularly the
social exclusion debates the language of
deprivation so deprived communities and
deprivation
and community development being a method
and approach
and a kind of quest to um address some
of these issues
now that language two minutes
yeah holy moly sorry about that and
yeah so the language of community
development um
as deprivation and
that is at odds with an asset-based
community development approach and we're
going to hear more about that
the second paper published this year
is a real core and this is published in
220
looking at two case studies one in
australia one in ireland
and by this stage um you know
those initiatives have gone we've had
the global financial crisis
austerity cuts across the board
and what these writers are saying is
that it's really critical
that community development comes back
into the space
of resisting and critiquing and
reflecting
on government agendas for community
development and
getting behind supporting um local
initiatives
so they talk about the need to view and
practice community development as
resistant spaces
so that's kind of got echoes there of
paulo freie and
his ideas about community development to
question the social policy trends
that stymie the pursuit of social
justice and human rights
and develop alternative worldviews and
practices
so in my minute left just just a bit of
a
story peter kenyon um has got an
initiative called the bank of ideas
and he tells the story of a town in new
zealand called
bull that was having a tough time
economically
and they realized that one of the assets
in their town was their name
it was called bull so because of that
what they did is they went round and
rebranded all of their
clubs and facilities and shops using the
word
bull so there's a shop called full as a
bull
the veterinarian clinic is called animal
hospital
and the library is called readable and
the church is called forgivable
and i really like that particular story
because to me it illustrates something
really powerful
about asset-based community development
so i've just said a bit of a scene i'll
put those papers in the chat
but i'll hand over now to our next
speaker
dave horton so thank you yes thank you
very much
hello everyone i hope you can hear me
tell me if you can't
i'm going to say some slides so again
tell me if you can't see them
uh i hope you can see that
my name is important i'm a community
worker in eli and cairo on the west of
cardiff
um i live in cairo as well with my
family um
and uh ace is a an organization um
based in cardiff in a building called
the dusty forge i'm basically going to
tell you a little bit about how we work
today just really briefly
um why we set the organization up what
our values and our philosophy
is um and what that means in practice
but i'm then going to hand over to my
colleague ollie who works at cardiff
university and we work very closely
together on
a heritage asset based heritage project
called kaya heritage
and all he's really going to go into
quite a bit more detail on one
particular project we developed together
as a kind of example of how this asset
based approach works
um no thank goodness for that thought
wasn't going to move on for a minute
okay so quick introduction some of you
may know alien kairos a
really large housing estate on the west
of cardiff um population about 26
000 really interesting history in the
area um eli was built after the first
world war on garden village principles
and chiva after the second world war
under bevin's kind of housing schemes
it's a really interesting quite radical
social housing policy that is
um at the foundation of kind of the
encourage history
and we had lots of employment in the
area um it could be the largest paper
mill in europe
ely paper mill which had about 450 to
500 employees when it closed in the
1990s
children's jam and pickle factory a
couple of brickworks lots and lots of
well-grounded rooted employers and based
in the community
who provided sustainable um secure
well-paid work and they were quite
integrated into the community in
interesting ways
and all that was lost through the kind
of 80s and 90s
and i guess we have a legacy of of
unemployment and in particular
an issue that's got worse in the last
kind of ten years we've seen it happen
while you've been here
um issues of inward poverty so people
struggling with the fact that
they work but it tends to be now in city
center-based
um social services kind of work social
sector kind of work
um services sector i mean um insecure
often part-time um low-paid
so we get people coming in and out of
the center training up to do
construction-based work in a three-week
contract and then back looking for work
again and we get a whole range of issues
around low income
um people on and off benefits and
getting into debt because they're behind
with
with benefit payments and that kind of
stuff so there's lots of issues related
to poverty and when we establish the
organization through the community's
first programme
what government communities
have been developing through that
program but importantly as a way of
putting that community away in the hands
of local people
enabling them to have something based
rooted right in the community that could
manage projects
employ staff run buildings and generate
income
so what's our philosophy we're very much
about having roots right in a local
we're very place based
roots in a local community um and that
what that means in practice is we base
all our work on a network of
relationships and on on
principles of social capital really and
that is both the grounding kind of
infrastructure for how we work
and enables us to do we do but it's also
an outcome in itself so creating
extended social capital for people both
within the community
and in into groups that they wouldn't
otherwise have contact with
is a fundamental part of what we do and
how we we solve kind of local challenges
but i guess
what i'd say if i was asked to say what
we're about in
one sort of concept is really
challenging this idea that's been
associated with our community and
communities like it that our community
is a problem that needs solving by
people from the outside
uh and what we find is that that once a
community owns that kind of narrative
the individuals within it begin to own
that narrative and they see themselves
as
not not people who have something to
contribute um who who are kind of unique
and
and that we all need to be part of a
solution to local problems and to
building community
but people who need services and things
done for them and we're really trying to
undermine that with a what we call an
asset based approach in the face of that
sort of traditional deficit based
approach
and fundamental to that is notions of
co-production and how we do things with
people not kind of tool for them
and the concept that everybody has
something to contribute so whenever we
gather our membership
we're a member member based organization
we give them that message really
strongly
everyone has something to contribute and
if anyone is unable to contribute for
any reason then
everybody loses out as a result and
that's the kind of underpinning
principle of everything we do
and as a result we've been able to build
an organization that's led by local
people
local people are staff trustees
volunteers members participants
and it's really a kind of very much a
grassroots locally run organization
where people grow and develop their
skills and are able to contribute
and we take a holistic approach to the
challenges that we're realistic about
being asset based doesn't mean that we
we deny that there aren't
the there are challenges
and we take holistic approach tackling
those using the assets and resources
that we have in our community
are really quick just to touch on what
we mean by assets we have a very broad
definition of that
um we're talking about social networks
that exist and those are very strong and
easy because it's not a transitory
community people tend to live here all
their lives and have family here
our skills knowledge experience and
creativity
um our organization itself is an asset
now and other organizations in the area
you'll hear a bit more about how we see
sort of heritage and culture and and
looking at that in quite a unique way as
a real asset and something we can build
on
and make work for the benefit of our
community
and then things like buildings um land
and equipment
you know the the the bouncy castle stuck
at the back of the church hall
uh you know all that stuff that gets
unused but could be bought into use to
build community and people's time as an
asset
i'm not going to talk about dusty forge
but it's our community center and it's a
good example i guess of how that comes
together in a place
that's become a home of
uh community asset approach
it's our major asset one of our major
assets and we've developed it in a kind
of diy
approach with local people um you know
bringing back into use and turning into
a thriving kind of center
i'm just gonna finish because my guess
is i'm coming up to the two minute mark
um just talking about stu the role of
stories and how important that is in
what we do
and how we've been able to build that as
a kind of fundamental aspect of
um our research and monitoring
evaluation
um one of the things we're trying to do
all the time and this is a really strong
theme in our heritage car heritage
project
is is tell a different story about our
community a classic example of this for
us is that um
ely has been associated with an incident
that happened in 1990
and which came to be known as the ely
riots or the bread riots
um which was the three or four nights of
disturbances on the streets in north ely
about the time there are similar
incidences happening around the uk
and that story has become associated
with our community in a really damaging
and unhelpful way
in a very stigmatizing way and a really
good example of what that looks like in
practice is is
about six or seven years ago it was the
20th there's a um 25th anniversary so
it'd have been sort of 2015
of the eli riots and even then the local
paper
the uh south wales echo had a double
page spread about the riots with all the
old photos coming out and kind of
it was just dragging up something that
for the for the community itself is just
long in the past and actually people's
interpretations of what happened locally
are very different from what you see
when you read in the papers
so that's a that's a kind of story
that's become associated with our
community and that you kind of carry
around as a burden
and so what we're trying to do is tell a
different story about our community and
our heritage and
the particular role of cairo at the
center of the development of cardiff
historically
is a different story that actually is an
empowering story for people who get to
tell it together and to own it
so we're really trying to tell a
different story about community and one
of our key ways of doing that
is to enable as part of that process
individuals to tell a different story
about themselves
and to kind of seize the initiative in
their lives
and to make a contribution in the
context of community action
and to tell a different story about how
they relate to their community and to
the world around them and how
they live their lives and what we find
is when people are able to do that when
we're able to
to identify with someone their
particular skills and interests and
talents and passions um and we're able
to support them to put that into action
in the context with other people and to
make a contribution to a collective
community their action and to celebrate
those contributions
that is when we see the most substantial
and um
and uh significant transformation for
individuals
and it often extends through whole
families and i'm going to give you a
really quick example of that in a minute
but that's where we see real change and
that's what we're looking to tap into
all the time
and we've been able to work with nick
who's on this call and nick andrews good
friend of ours
to build that storytelling approach into
our monitoring evaluation using
something called most significant change
so we collect individual stories of
change
um and we we ask them what the the most
significant changes for them from their
perspective as a part of being
in as a result of being involved in aces
work um and they unpack that for us and
with us
and then we use panels of people to
discuss and compare those stories and
those panels include local people and
staff and
partners and to understand and draw
learning from that around what was the
significant thing that made the change
for that person
so we've been able to build those
stories into our monitoring evaluation
processes and they're fundamental now to
how we work
but also that collecting and sharing of
stories has become a really important
part of celebrating change
of enabling people to become role models
for others in their community
about 30 sorry seconds billy's story
he's the guy in the middle on the
picture on the right
with the cap he came to us about five
years ago
unemployed um he'd been on jobseeker's
allowance and was told he had to get
six months of voluntary work which is
compulsory 30 hours a week
he begged us for a volunteer placement
he'd been unemployed for about 10 years
at least
had two lads in the house who were
suffering from depression as he was
and were isolated in their rooms playing
computer games billy came and did some
some
maintenance and work for us he was
brilliant we very quickly um
established the real people skills you
make people welcome to the building
we get emails from flying start who use
the building saying we just want to say
how welcoming billy was
and we ended up taking him as a paid
staff member he applied for a job after
six months with us
and he was the caretaker but with so
much more than that he's just just
finished with us now
after five years and he's moving on to
other things and it's totally
transformational for him after
years and years of unemployment and ill
health he felt he was unemployable
um to to discover that his um talents
were needed and
were taken up into this bigger story and
for him now it's been transformational
his boys are in college and studying
and that's just a good example of that
personal transformation that happens
through
um nurturing people's contribution in a
community context through an asset based
approach
i hope that's helpful i'm gonna shut up
and i'll look forward to speaking to
some of you in the small groups
yeah yes thanks for the intro
hi everybody i'm just going to share my
screen
um
there we go so hello um
i i fill a bit of a pilgrim in a foreign
land
here today i'm not a social worker i'm
not a social scientist
uh i'm not a community development
worker either i'm actually a lecturer
in archaeology um but
i have learnt
the community development kind of way of
working has really infused
my ways of working both academically and
out when i'm working in communities
so i'm going to tell you um a bit about
a project that is
a collaboration between ace and the
university and a whole raft of other
um project partners called kaya heritage
so this is a
um an asset-based project that is
building on
the really rich heritage of this
particular
and part of cardiff
um as dave mentioned you know
elie and kyra are do not do not have
um the sort of traditional economic
assets i guess
that many other communities have such as
you know the really big employers
um those kind of things are left in the
in the 1980s
um but it does have a particularly rich
suite of heritage assets i mean i guess
every community
has its own heritage it's what makes
places and communities unique after all
um but eli and kaira seem to have a
concentration
of not just regionally not just
nationally but actually internationally
significant
heritage archaeological historic sites
concentrated in this kind of
smallish area of cardiff and all very
much
well up to a certain point relatively
undervalued or
mainly underused as assets
and which they would be if say they were
in a different community if they were
you know some of these are in north
cardiff or you know
um over in which church or something
some of these sites would be very very
well known and well visited
um here's just a kind of a range of
things i've put on this slide here from
medieval churches through to
roman villa in the in the park
and also you know the parkland is where
there's interesting modern history is
where the cardiff um
racecourse used to be where the welsh
grand national used to be runs there's a
really interesting suite of resources
but
the the jewel in the crown for me at
least
is a site on the southern side of the
estates you can see there that's labeled
fort
down in the bottom the bottom middle and
that is actually
what we call a hill fort it's um dates
to about
uh well the hilltop dates about 500 bc
so it's about two and a half thousand
years old
and it's enormous it's enormous and it's
very complicated yeah
very complex architecture and it's
really
you know it's the biggest and most
significant hill fort
um in this part of southeast wales
but nothing had ever been you've done
with it um partly because archaeologists
like me tend to like
working in very rural areas um
where you know you don't have to deal
with communities
um but actually you know another part is
that
you know there isn't a huge amount of
archaeology um that's been done
um on iron age sites in this region um
per se
anyway so it's got you know the area has
got this this kind of really rich
heritage
um resource now we i recognized
well i i amongst others that had
recognized this for a long time
i was particularly interested from a
research perspective in the hill fort
and i started to go out into the
community to kind of speak to people and
i met
dave and other community members
and you know dave when they when they
originally started ace
um had done a community um audit and had
identified the hill fort as an
asset but not really knew not really
knowing what they could do with it
and so kind of we made that link between
the university and ace and that that
kind of
link has been at the heart of everything
that we do we've kind of learned off
each other and drawn from each other's
networks and skills and experiences and
been able to bring in
a whole set of other project partners to
work on
a whole raft of different activities and
and various projects over the years so
we started back in 2011 so it's been
going for a long time now
and it's yeah as i said it's a
collaborative project between the
university
ace but also local schools other
heritage organizations
local residents local groups local
community groups
um and a whole raft of other interested
individuals and organizations
everything that we do um we attempt to
use
the co-production principles so it's not
about the university parachuting in and
doing something then going away again
everything all the activities we do um
are co-produced to some extent are they
completely bottom-up
no probably not are they completely
top-down definitely not we were kind of
a
middleweight project but we aspire to be
much more bottom-up than than top-down
we had um at the at the announcer kind
of a range of
um underpinning objectives um and again
these were co-produced
from com from conversations and meetings
we were having when we bring people
around the table
um but you know at the top of that list
was kind of trying to foster a different
sense of place for for the communities
in this
in this area trying to tell that sort of
different story that dave
dave was talking about but we also saw a
whole range of other opportunities
providing
educational also what we call new life
opportunities building social capital
social networks
promoting skills developments
raising interest in local heritage and
kind of putting it on
uh people's agendas not only in kyrani
but kind of wider
wider field in cardiff and also for me
and i'm passionate about people coming
to university so a big part of this was
about breaking down
barriers to higher education very few
people from this area go on to
university and
you know i i believe it can change your
life um so i want more people to come
through
two minutes ollie two minutes oh my god
okay
um okay well i'll go through to some of
some of the methods
um so you know we've involved people in
every aspect of the project from from
undertaking uh you know internationally
significant research
you've got individuals and organizations
here school groups involved in
excavations and other historical
research which then generates positive
news stories about the area
it builds confidence in those
individuals involved
we work very closely with with with the
schools particularly the secondary
schools in the area but also the
primaries
about kind of widening participation um
develop curriculum development so we're
actually developing resources about
local history and heritage for the
schools to use
adult learners too so it's not just
school children or people of school
children ages adults
engaging with the project engaging both
formally and informally so we run a
whole suite
of accredited adult learners courses
we've run
maybe seven or eight now got a whole
load more in the pipeline
um these are run at what the university
calls level
zeros at well level three now um
but it's a way of getting people back
into education particularly targeted at
those who've been out of education for a
very long time
um that called the live local learn
local scheme um and the idea is that we
try and bring people through
who well part of it is about raising
confidence
and things like that but it's also about
potentially bringing three people
through
to higher education a number have gone
on to
what we call pathway to degree and then
subsequently a number have actually gone
on to degree as well
um over the years so it's been quite a
successful part of the project
um just sort of mentioning here that
yeah it's not just history and
archaeology you know we engage people in
all sorts of different
ways through creativity through art in
particular
art is a fantastic way of getting people
kind of thinking about things they
didn't really
you know want to think about in in in
other ways perhaps
we work with a range of kind of local
and uh nationally
uh national artists
um volunteering too is a is a key
part of of what we do so it's not just
about doing excavations or doing
research
it's about working with people to
improve
um the management and the kind of
the aesthetic of the historic sites in
this area to try and encourage more
people to come and visit them and in
doing so come and see what the area is
actually
you know kind of try and break down
those kind of barriers to why people
don't necessarily come to to kyra neely
so we've got a range of quite successful
volunteer groups where individuals come
and get involved in things like
conservation
um pathway creation or management
and a whole range of community-led
campaigns that are trying to address
some of the
the issues that the the site like cairo
hill fort suffers from anti-social
behavior and those kinds of things
so we kind of do that regularly and kind
of keep up that regular
contact um we're at the moment we were
kind of running these on a weekly basis
but obviously during lockdown that was
significantly harder just going to
finish
with i've got i've got two more slides
and i think they they're reasonably
important so it's going to finish with
these just to
think about some of these these kind of
project outcomes you know we've got the
traditional
academic outcomes um
which perhaps are less important for for
many people on here but um
you know in terms of kind of social
outcomes you know huge numbers of people
actually involved in projects you know
almost 4
000 active participants in project
activity
um huge numbers of different
institutional partners um
involved and in doing so kind of
creating wider and wider social networks
or social capital for the people's
um involved and then there's an idea of
progression as well
managing to progress people through to
higher education from an area where very
few people go on to
to do higher education so you know you
know some real tangible
um outcomes uh from this project which
have been
yeah i think the sentence at the top
there is probably quite important
mutual benefits from long-term
commitment i don't think any of this
would be possible
without us having been working in this
area for for a very long time almost 10
years now
i think that continued kind of
relationship
and finally just kind of pick up on i
might leave this up
for a couple of minutes but you can read
them for yourselves really just to pick
up on what dave was saying about most
significant change and
the way that people tell their own
stories and what they think is
um significant and here's just a few
examples of those stories from this
um project and you can see that it kind
of you know
you the stories you get sort of um focus
on different aspects for some people the
thing that's really important is the
site itself the heritage the place
for other people the most significant
thing is about getting involved in
something
and building that confidence back up
feeling valued
about what they're doing and what they
can give and seeing that other people
value what they can give to the project
so there's a whole range of these that
we've actually managed to get now and i
love some of these the way that we can
kind of reflect
back on on some things that you think
actually you know for me as an academic
i didn't think that was very important
but actually for someone else
it's massively important so you know one
of the excavations of six-year-olds was
um was with us on the site and found one
of the first neolithic
really really important artifact they
found and they imagined they took it to
a professor
who was staying nearby and had a
conversation with that professor about
um about this object and for them that
was that kind of yeah this is an
unbelievable experience where they got
to engage with an academic they would
never
ever you know perhaps engage with
elsewhere
so it's you know those kinds of things
that we can kind of tease out of this
of this process i've gone on for too
long i know so i'm going to stop
i'm going to stop there
am i uh am i handing over to nick yes
hello
okay there's three fantastic
presentations and um
so much food for thought so um
one of them the things when you when
you've been presented with such rich
information the dangers it can go in one
ear out the other so for the next 20
minutes we want to put you into
breakout rooms just to to reflect and
chew over
some of the things that have been shared
so what we'd like to do we also want to
make sure that everybody not just the
extrovert people get it get a get a
voice
are able to say what they think so we're
going to put you into breakout rooms
and we're going to ask you to think
individually and share individually
in a sentence only in one sentence or at
the most two sentences
what strikes you most about what has
been shared so that's the question
we'd like to pose to you what strikes
you most about what has been shared
and then what we would like you to do
then it might be and it's important to
point this out that you might agree with
something or disagree so it's not you
think it's all marvelous you might
actually want to challenge what's being
shared
and that's why i've got this picture of
the elephant metaphor we encourage
people
to have different perspectives so that's
really important
um and then what we'd like the group to
do to feedback
we're looking at the groups running for
about 20 minutes the breakouts
and then coming back at 12. we hope
you'll bear with us for the last
20 10 minutes to 10 12 past 10 past 12
for a bit of feedback what we'd like
each group to feedback on is we'd like
them to agree
or come up with a key message or
implication
for social work or social care so it's
just for each group to come up with
um a message or an implication for the
way we do social work and social care is
that okay
so so sean is going to put us into
groups and your question
is everybody to have a little think and
say what strikes you most about what
has been shared is that okay shonda i'll
pass over to you now to do the magic of
breakout rooms
so shall i start with our little group i
think we were group one
and one of the things that came up was
just this
whole thing around possibilities when
you connect people
especially when you connect to diverse
people with different ways of seeing the
world and thinking
and sometimes we said social social work
and social care tends to be
all around pre-planning you have your
national outcomes framework you set all
your predetermined outcome measures
and you try to look at distance traveled
rather than
just get people together and see what
happens and see what emerges and learn
retrospectively so i think our group
we're really keen on just look at the
possibilities and think outside the box
that was a key message from our group
would you like to pass to the next group
then allison
uh yeah jan do you want to talk from our
group
jan you're on mute
that is the the the phrase of 2020 isn't
it you're on mute
um in our group i think we we
had quite a few people who are already
quite active within the community
development work i think the the the key
element
for them was that it's all about that
connectivity how do you
actually join with people together and
they talked about how
um they're already developing really
good connectivity between different kind
of projects and
and individuals within the role but then
they raised the question about how do we
actually make sure that we get that
happening
across wales so those little areas of
good connectivity
can join together for for a bigger
connectivity
and something around the the need for um
a compendium of um better
better practice so that people can
actually learn from from
each other and rather than reinvent the
wheel i think the final point which was
particularly the the thing that most
third sector ngos will will know
is that short-term funding actually
works very much against
connectivity because there's that kind
of connected uh that that
competition or the one fight over
funding that
stops that block i think that was
rough yet uh somebody can slap me across
the head and remind me if i have missed
any
uh key points no i think that
summarized it well yeah yeah and i
i don't have the list of groups now so
does anyone else want to volunteer to
be spokesperson for for their group well
you know the list
fiona was in a group weren't you fiona i
was in a group a fantastic group that
had a very passionate conversation
so just a couple of things one is about
um what struck
um someone was the power of the stories
and the most significant change
so that kind of method but then we had a
really good discussion about
how do you keep the passion going in the
moment how do you build the momentum and
sustain it and
light the fire for change agents within
local communities and kind of really
keep it moving and then how do you
influence commissioning processes to
enable
those kind of processes to be kicked off
and sustained
so our conversation kind of focused on
that and went into all sorts of
different
um tracks stemming from that
red but you're in a group yeah we had a
really lively discussion
sophie buckley from pavs is going to
feedback to us
about our our key theme
hello hi hello nick hi everybody
um so yeah um sue and sandy and
reb were in the group with with myself
and
myself and uh sue and sandy talked about
the
the covert response in our in our
counties that we've seen
um and sort of the different responses
in terms
of uh either grassroots community action
or kind of the coordination of
volunteers in other counties
um but basically what we felt was
important was
the the kind of um
of identifying assets um
and working alongside community groups
as a supporter um you know
community groups you know need
information
sometimes and they may need advice and
so it's important that they know
where to go um but we mustn't stifle
community action um
but rather empower community members to
to use their assets um
and to um to support those around them
thank you sophie and then we've got
ollie you had a group holly
i did yes thanks um just it well
i think that there were two main themes
that came out of ours
um group members please feel free to
jump in if you think i've missed
something here
and there are actually two things that
have kind of already been been mentioned
which is interesting
um the first was kind of thinking about
assets themselves
what constitutes an asset um kind of you
know
what actually is a community asset and
so there's yeah there's a there's a
whole
you know um discussion there to be
unpacked i guess around you know
are they economic social everything you
know
where the where does an asset begin and
end um
and how do we identify them um and then
the second
aspect um was again picking up on jan's
point about connectivity
um so there was a yeah so some
discussion around the potential sort of
schism between
um social workers and community
development workers or there's at least
a gap between
between them and and how do we kind of
link them up how do we link up community
development workers with the social
workers so
the idea that um some social work you
know you're taking people
out of their local communities and
putting them in
other communities whereas in fact if
there was that kind of link up
you might find that there are the assets
the projects the activities going on
in their own communities and so how do
we kind of link those
he'd link those two groups of people up
better
last but not least we've got dave dave
horton and your group
yeah thanks nick so uh yeah we had a
really good conversation
[Music]
what kind of um feedback i would give is
that there was a sense that there was a
real
there was a desire amongst social
workers to to work
with the individual and family in the
wider context
um to look at sort of the community
context and wider networks and the the
good things and the assets already
happening around
um that that person or family
but there are challenges identified
around kind of resources
and caseloads and things like that but a
couple of interesting sort of areas of
promise if you like or things we should
be focused on one was that it was
pointed out we have a
unique legal landscape in wales with the
social care and wellbeing act and other
aspects
that actually puts collectives and
cooperatives and approaches like that
as part of the mix so that is there to
be kind of um
developed and and engaged with um
albeit with all the challenges we've
already said about resources
particularly sort of
um post austerity and then and then the
second thing is just the idea that there
is a history of this as
and there's an idea that we could move
back to the roots of um
social work that are in social justice
and human rights
um which allow for this sort of focus on
communities
um on families in that way the community
context i think that was that was kind
of a broad
quick summary but if anyone from my
group wants to chip in they're very
welcome
i'm thinking i'm reminded of the
philosopher martin buber says all real
living
is meeting and this the possibilities
and things that happen when people
connect
and so i think that's probably the
prevailing message for me i'm going to
hand over to um alison
because i know people be ready starting
to get their tommy's rumbling for lunch
so alison did you want to close the
session just to say um you know
it was really thought provoking really
interesting very well
put together presentations and i really
really enjoyed it
and for me personally it really made me
think about how individualistic
we are in social work which is my
particular field
and and how much we forget community and
how you know much there is
uh for us to be going out there and
doing so i really enjoyed it we probably
i didn't have enough time to get
all the discussions but hopefully it set
lots of um
thoughts racing that and um people
have asked a lot about the different
pieces of literature from fiona
which she has put in the chat but sean
will
send out um the references to everybody
who's attended
and there was just one final query about
a paper by david burnham so perhaps we
could just add that piece of literature
in when we send
out so thank you very very much for
coming i think it's
been absolutely fascinating and i've
really enjoyed it so
on behalf of exchange thank you very
very much
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