'Only a footstep away' - Skills for Care - Think Local Act Personal

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networks, good neighbourliness and socialglue.” (ONS 2001)3.17 The concept has becomeparticularly associated with the writing ofRobert Putman who defines it as ‘thefeatures of social organisation such asnetworks, norms and social trust thatfacilitate coordination and cooperation formutual benefit’ (Putman 1995, 67). Areview of the literature on social cohesionand social capital by Stafford (2005)identified eight dimensions:• family ties• friendship ties• participation in local organisedgroups• integration into the wider community• trust• attachment to neighbourhood• tolerance• being able to rely on others forpractical help.3.18 The neighbourhood may be onesource of social capital but many peopleare less dependent on neighbours forsocial support, and their networks are lesslocally based than in the past (and likely tobecome even less so with the dispersal ofpopulations but also because of theincreasing significance of virtual socialnetworks via sites such as Facebook). Intheir analysis of data contained in theGeneral Household Survey, Bridge andothers (2004) report that visits toneighbours took place on at least three orfour days per week by almost 50% ofrespondents, but there is no additionaldata on the nature and extent of suchvisits. Similarly the 2008 Place Surveyfound that 23% of respondents said theyhad given unpaid help (excluding donatingmoney) in a voluntary capacity during theprevious twelve months. (ONS 2008)3.19 Another approach to understandingsocial capital is what David Halpern terms‘the hidden wealth of nations’. This refersto a parallel world of relationships andreciprocal interactions that ‘makes oursocieties and economies work.’ (Halpern2010, 2) In particular, ‘the economy ofregard’ includes “the myriad of ways inwhich people help, show affection, care forand support each other in everyday life.”(p.98) Within this economy, the relationshipbetween the giver and receiver is a keyfeature. Halpern poses questions aboutwhether and how the economy of regardcan be supported and encouraged,including approaches that make mutualsupport and voluntary activity anexpectation within society. We will return tothis later in the paper.3.20 All these findings do at least suggestthere is some basis for developing localstrategies on social capital, and thebenefits of doing so have been muchrehearsed. Putman (1995) argues thatsocial capital has a strong influence onhealth status, and that measures of socialcapital correlate with those on morbidityand premature mortality, independently ofthe effects of material deprivation. Morebroadly he suggests that communitieswhere trust, reciprocity and socialnetworks are strong will yield collectiveaction and cooperation to the benefit ofthe wider community. It is this latter featurethat signifies social capital as a societalrather than an individual property—a‘public good’ rather than an individualpossession. In this way we can conceive ofsocial capital as consisting of the featuresof a place (such as a neighbourhood)rather than of individuals. Central to theconcept of social capital is the view that itis a resource that can be both depletedand renewed; where people work together,the stock of social capital increases, butwhere they don’t it declines—perhapsterminally.‘Only a footstep away’? 10
3.21 In this context, White (2002) notesthat social capital has come to have atleast two meanings in policy terms. Firstthere is social capital as ‘bonding capital’,meaning networks and relationships oftrust within communities. Secondly there issocial capital as ‘bridging capital’, meaningthe networks and inter-relationshipsbetween neighbourhoods, communitiesand external agencies and resources. Thisdistinction further raises the question of therelationship between the two meanings,and the extent to which it is possible forbodies such as local authorities togenerate bonding capital.3.22 Again, there are two approaches tothis relationship. One approach is to viewsocial capital as an alternative to statesupport—a way of rebuilding a perceived‘broken society’ by emphasising the virtueand value of strong mutual ties. A differentapproach is to develop a strategy thatharnesses bonding capital to bridgingcapital through a range of measuresdesigned to replace top-down approacheswith locally generated initiatives andprogrammes. There has been no shortageof such developments in past decade andthese are the subject of the followingsection of this report.3.23 The fashionable term for describingthe link between bonding and bridgingcapital is ‘coproduction’—a concept thathas arisen from the critique of traditionalservices which are thought to havesupplanted rather than strengthenedpeople’s own abilities and their socialnetworks. In this perspective, communitiescannot be built upon their deficiencies, butonly upon the mobilisation of the capacityand assets of people and place. In a reviewof the issues for the Department of Health(OPM 2009) it is suggested that aframework for analysis should encompassindividual economic capital, individualcapacity, an individual’s social networks,neighbourhood relationships andcommunity associations, and public,voluntary and commercial services andfacilities.4 neighbourhood policyand practice4.1 ‘Neighbourhood support’ is a termthat appeals to two different social policydevelopments. On the one hand it canrefer to the extent and intensity ofneighbourliness achieved in aneighbourhood; on the other it can refer tothe provision of formal or semi-formalsupport to the inhabitants of aneighbourhood with no necessaryreference to neighbourliness at all. Theidea therefore crosses a frontier betweenformally organised social action andessentially informal relationships.Moreover, not all of the issues affectingneighbourhoods can be addressed atneighbourhood level, therefore therelationship between neighbourhood-levelsolutions and wider area strategies is alsocrucial.4.2 Barnes (2006) makes a further usefuldistinction between interventions that arecommunity-based, and those that are atcommunity level:• Community-level interventions aimat the whole community (orneighbourhood) and primarily intend tochange that community rather than to helpspecific individuals or families within it. Theapproach is based upon the convictionthat social problems (especially thosecreated by disadvantage) are best dealtwith by ‘capacity building’ in thecommunity rather than by focusing uponindividuals with problems. This ties in withthe idea of social capital as a public goodrather than an individual possession.‘Only a footstep away’? 11
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Page 3 and 4: acknowledgementsThis paper was comm
Page 5 and 6: executive summary1. This paper is a
Page 7 and 8: 1 introduction1.1 This report is a
Page 9 and 10: LD 2010). The agreement was intende
Page 11 and 12: Abrams notes that the placing of re
Page 13 and 14: neighbourhood.” (Blackman 2006, 2
Page 15: describe certain disadvantaged area
Page 19 and 20: “social responsibility, volunteer
Page 21 and 22: neighbourhood policing (HO 2010) wh
Page 23 and 24: collective (‘I pledge to do X if
Page 25 and 26: the province of the community rathe
Page 27 and 28: Deficit ApproachStarts with deficie
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Page 34 and 35: 6 conclusions and nextsteps6.1 It i
Page 36 and 37: any attempt to link these elements
Page 38 and 39: eferencesADASS 2010Bartnick, E and
Page 40 and 41: LD 2010Liberal Democrats (2010), Li

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