Programme Evaluation 2014-15

Recommendations

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• The kitchen garden at St Anne’s Church has become a focus, not merely for growing food plants and developing horticultural skills by asylum seekers, but of wider community pride and regeneration. • Users of the Tomorrow’s Women garden at the St Laurence Centre, Birkenhead reported similar outcomes. Here, the connections between therapeutic and skills-related horticulture and healthy, economically-sustainable cooking and eating were particularly clear. • The Merseyside Textile Federation brings together women, mostly from vulnerable communities and provides a safe, productive space where they can find companionship, build self-confidence, acquire life skills and share resources – something that is true for the facilitators and supported women alike. As an indication of progress made, many of the sewing machines originally placed at the group’s disposal were broken, but all have now been refurbished and regularly used by female asylum seekers. • 35 women were actively engaged in making garments, bags and other items from recycled materials. When surveyed, the overwhelming majority considered that, as a result of their participation, they had gained skills and become more socially active and confident in their everyday lives. They also said that they felt less anxious in their home environment. • The Grow Your English session, effectively contextualised language learning through lessons linked to the growing of seasonal food. • 3,830 people across Merseyside received healthy meals in convivial, supportive settings through Target Wellbeing, encouraging many to adopt healthier, more resilient lifestyles. • The greening of the Wirral’s main routeways under Mersey Forest’s Local Transport Fund has been effective in promoting the benefits of walking and cycling to local residents. • Work to bring together vulnerable communities through the Wirral VCA Faith Network project has built a new local culture of cooperation in neighbourhoods whose deprivation levels are among the highest in England. • The MRWA –Veolia Educrate project engaged a total of 40 schools (to differing degrees) in an integrated programme, fully linked to the National Curriculum, highlighting the skills and wider benefits to be derived from sustainable, healthy food growing and eating, textile exchange and re-use, waste prevention and minimisation. This has major implications for behavioural change among the local school population and their wider families. • The well-publicised participation of Muslim communities in flood prevention activities at a time when they and their beliefs have been subject to widespread discrimination and public condemnation, has been crucial in building trust and community cohesion. This builds significantly on F4C’s long-term mission of using the catalyst of faith to bring together the region’s diverse communities. • The Heath’s Marian Trail is a visible, valued and culturally significant addition to the St Helen’s area. It has brought together schools, churches and local groups from across what was the North West’s original ‘religious divide’ to take part in shared celebrations that positively re-define traditional customs and community values. Photos 8 and 9: F4C has created the Really Useful Skills Hub, a network of like-minded organisations active in reuse and community work across Merseyside. It offers a place to share ideas, information and support to increase reuse. These sheets are examples of creative development at a design session. 17
7. Partners’ Perspectives “True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the ‘rejects of life’, to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands --whether of individuals or entire peoples -- need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world.” Paulo Freire (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p.45 Because F4C’s core mission is one of outreach, it is appropriate that this evaluation should also focus on how that mission and its outcomes are viewed by its partners. It needs to quantify F4C’s performance in securing funding for activities that meet its objectives; the people, places and organisations benefitting from those activities; how these compare with previous years; and realistic future projections. This helps current and potential partners to make wise decisions about future joint working at a time of increased competition for scarce resources. Large organisations with an environmental or community development remit are particularly likely to find such information helpful. But F4C’s holistic, faith-based approach has implications for how it engages with partners and evolves as an organisation. Hence it is even more important for funders, sponsors and supporters who value such working styles – or who, indeed, have reservations about faith-based charities - to get a clearer idea of what it is like to partner F4C. This section is based around structured conversations with members of nine organisations who have worked closely with F4C, not just during 2014-15 but over several years, and in some cases since its inception in 2004. Interviewees were invited to describe, in their own style, their roles and objectives, how they came to know and be working with F4C, what this work involved, and their overall feelings about that partnership. The interviewees all come from organisations with a distinctly social remit, two thirds of them with a faith background. All have been active in their respective fields for at least a decade, and engage fully with cross-sector partnerships in the North West. Although most of their organisations are relatively small, in terms of staff and funding, nearly all cater to the needs of disproportionately larger numbers of people. By and large, the interviewees’ job descriptions complement, rather than duplicate, F4C’s core activities. These include spiritual education; training and outreach work on sustainability and social justice issues; linking broad corporate objectives to community needs and potential; organising comprehensive support to vulnerable, stigmatised or overlooked social groups; and community development at a local neighbourhood level. Common characteristics revealed in the conversations included a sense of resourcefulness, a willingness to cross boundaries, respect and learn from other people; and notably, a refusal to give up in the face of adversity. These characteristics were reflected in both the objectives of the partner organisations – and, importantly, in the personal qualities of their interviewees themselves. Nearly all were acquainted with F4C, personally and organisationally, before engaging in joint activities. What this indicates is that within the region’s voluntary sector (certainly on Merseyside) there exists a well-established and well-used informal framework of knowledge, understanding and support that is fully linked into but extends beyond the more visible and formal institutions: the latter include ‘infrastructure’ bodies, such as the CVS and Chamber of Commerce. This is vital for smaller organisations providing specialised activities to disadvantaged communities. It is even more so in a culture where voluntary services that once relied on public sector block grants are subject to funding cuts and competitive tendering - matched by a presumption that wellbeing is an individual, not social, responsibility 20 . But it is also true that large organisations providing mainstream services find it difficult to adapt their style of communication and delivery at the point of use in ways that best meet people’s needs – particularly in disadvantaged communities. Because the North West has major concentrations of such communities, organisations like the Environment Agency and the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority have found it highly effective to secure F4C’s assistance in getting their message across. Here, personal contact with appropriate staff has been crucial in brokering and developing local partnerships. The decision to work with F4C did not therefore mark a ‘step change’ for any of the interviewees’ organisations: rather, it came as a logical and natural progression. This was based on the belief or knowledge that partnership would give added value to their activities; act as a catalyst for longer-term sustainability; raise their organisation’s profile; provide an ‘extra pair of hands’; allow funding bids to 20 For a systematic overview of this trend and its implications, see Benson, Andy (2015) Fight or Fright: Voluntary Services in 2015 A summary of the NCIA Inquiry into the Future of Voluntary Services Available at: http://www.independentaction.net/wpcontent/uploads/sites/8/2015/02/NCIA-Inquiry-summary-report-final.pdf 18
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Page 3 and 4: Contents “The most important prin
Page 5 and 6: Chart 1: Percentage of Project Area
Page 7 and 8: Running Costs In addition to the co
Page 9 and 10: Although every local authority area
Page 11 and 12: 4. Nature and Extent of Partnership
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Page 15 and 16: 6. Outputs and Outcomes “A lack o
Page 17: • 80 asylum seekers supported by
Page 21 and 22: skills and shared responsibility. P
Page 23 and 24: • F4C has successfully maintained
Page 25: Photo 12: Asylum Link Merseyside la

Programme Evaluation 2014-15

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