Community participation - Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Community participation in two deprived neighbourhoods
One thing leads to another
The second common theme to emerge from many of the insiders was that their
heavy involvement in governance had tended to spring from the connections
between different opportunities for participation – getting involved in one had led to
getting involved in another.
This was true of both the breadth and depth of their involvement. For example, Mike
Jones’ participation in educational governance began with volunteering at his local
school. That led to him being invited to become a school governor. Participating in
events with other school governors in the area then led to him being nominated as a
Parent Governor Representative on Cardiff City Council’s Education Scrutiny
Committee.
Sixteen-year-old Chloe was born and brought up in Ely. She belongs to the Cardiff
Young People’s Panel and through that, was asked to represent Ely on Funky
Dragon, the national Welsh youth forum. She was also asked to co-chair a youth
consultation panel for Cardiff Council on education issues, and recently helped to
organise the annual Cardiff-wide Youth Congress. Chloe now often finds herself
courted by organisations wanting to consult and engage with young people. Before
he would let our research team meet her, her youth worker was careful to find out
exactly why we wanted to speak to her, and it’s easy to see why he should be
protective – Chloe is a girl in demand.
It’s who you know that counts
Third, the main reason why different governance opportunities were so
interconnected, and that involvement in one led to involvement in another, was the
overlapping social networks between the people involved. There was a good deal of
cross-recruitment, with participants in one governance arrangement persuaded to
join another by people they met who happened to participate in both.
Youth worker John Hallett’s participation in governance began when he was inspired
to join LETRA, his local tenants and residents’ association, by the example of a
visionary member he had met. Through youth work at the Dusty Forge community
centre he came into contact with the Ely Development Forum, which held its
meetings there. Through the Forum he learnt about the opportunity to participate on
the Communities First Partnership.
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