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

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any attempt to link these elements to anemerging workforce strategy is groundedin reality rather than in any naivelyoptimistic view about the nature ofcommunities, neighbourhoods andreciprocity. Nevertheless there is scope toexplore the factors that can facilitate andnurture the preconditions for mutuality andsupport, and that needs to be the focus fora further stage of work.6.5 We have noted the development ofthe Building Community Capacity project inthe Department of Health. At present thecase studies appear to be focusing oninnovative service development and socialcapital promotion. The ‘trailblazer’ sitesthat are participating in the BuildingCommunity Capacity project couldpotentially provide further opportunities topilot parallel areas of work needed aroundworkforce and community skillsdevelopment. Currently the sites do notappear to focus on the workforceimplications of their programmes.6.6 This paper has been prepared toinform the next stages of development andto assist Skills for Care in addressing theworkforce implications of thetransformation agenda in general, and thedevelopment of social capital in particular.Although the workforce implications ofneighbourhoodism have yet to bearticulated, there are some general issuesthat can be raised and these are set outbelow.6.7 Everybody’s business:Neighbourhood policy and practicecrosses all sectors—informal, independent,statutory and the voluntary and communitysector. It also straddles manyorganisational and professionalboundaries, and is about much more thanSkills for Care and the Department ofHealth. An area of around 10,000population, for example, is likely to containprimary health care services, communityhealth services, adults’ and children’ssocial care and support, early years andprimary school provision, neighbourhoodpolicing, a community pharmacy,neighbourhood wardens of some sort, anumber of voluntary and communitygroups, housing offices, commercial andleisure facilities, and some measure ofsocial capital. All of these contributions areimportant but they are rarely joined up, andthere has not been any attempt to developa coherent focus upon the workforceimplications. As we have also remarked,neighbourhood policy and practice is also,and increasingly, the focus of politicalinterest across all main parties and istherefore likely to remain a key focus forinnovation and development for the nextand subsequent administrations.6.8 Weaving together formal andinformal support: There has been atendency for care in the neighbourhoodand care by the neighbourhood to developalong separate tracks. This misses acrucial opportunity to develop synergybetween the informal neighbourhoodleaders identified in this report, and thosewith more formal positions. Any workforcedevelopment strategy will need toencompass formal and informal, paid andvoluntary elements.6.9 A common body of skills andknowledge: There will be some genericareas of skills and knowledge that areimportant to all neighbourhood-basedpractitioners but that are not routinelyaddressed in current education andtraining. These might include theoreticaland conceptual issues; empirical evidenceon neighbourliness; reviews ofneighbourhood policies; the importance ofa joined-up approach; illustrations of goodpractice; and skills in neighbourhoodmapping and data analysis. The key issueis exploring the scope for learning synergy‘Only a footstep away’? 30
across all of those with a stake inneighbourhood level working.6.10 Testing the capacity of socialcapital: When so much of the essence ofsocial capital is about mutualism, altruismand voluntarism, it is uncertain how best todevelop and encourage these qualities and– particularly – whether a more formalrequirement for citizens to contribute totheir communities will drive out the veryqualities it tries to engender. Any workforcedevelopment strategy will need to explorethe issues around voluntarism andcompulsion, and to investigate the impactof incentives in shaping behaviour (both atthe level of individuals and on a communityor neighbourhood basis).6.11 These key issues – and probablyothers – could offer the beginnings of aframework within which to locateexploratory pilot developments linking aworkforce development model toneighbourhoodism and communitycapacity building. There is a resurgence ofinterest in ‘the neighbourhood’ evident onmany levels, not least in party politics andin the new ambition to build the bigsociety. It is important that theopportunities this creates are seized andbuilt upon rather than merely going theway of much political rhetoric and having arelatively short shelf life. There is potentialto promote social capital and to developthe workforce – in public, private,charitable, and social enterprise arenas - ininnovative and productive ways whichtranscend passing political fashion andeconomic expediency.‘Only a footstep away’? 31
Page 1 and 2: we identifynew andinnovativeways of
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 and 16: describe certain disadvantaged area
Page 17 and 18: 3.21 In this context, White (2002)
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
Page 30 and 31: communities may have different leve
Page 32 and 33: and disorder, under-performing heal
Page 34 and 35: 6 conclusions and nextsteps6.1 It i
Page 38 and 39: eferencesADASS 2010Bartnick, E and
Page 40 and 41: LD 2010Liberal Democrats (2010), Li

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