The aims of the project are to improve how people feel about where they live and to help them become more involved in their local community.
Themes
- Community cohesion
- Collaborative working
- Tackling deprivation
Locality
Selby North
Aims
Partner organisations seek by working together to have positive impacts on people living in Selby North without the need for additional funding. The core area around Charles Street is one of the lower super output areas within the 20 per cent most deprived in England.
The aims are:
- To improve how people feel about where they live;
- To develop stronger connections between people ie neighbours; and
- To help people to become more involved in their local community.
Stronger support mechanisms and a sense of belonging and shared responsibility can reduce isolation and build community cohesion leading to more resilient and healthier individuals and communities.
Details
The project is unusual as we have no funding to account for and no pre-set targets to achieve. Partners are committed to a long term and evolving collaboration to address entrenched problems.
The early stages of the project have been about building links between partners including county council, district council and police. We have made sure that local practitioners are involved - children's centre staff, social care workers supporting older people, youth workers, community officers supporting people in social housing, the town council, the CVS, the local school, a local church group living on the estate, colleagues from public health.
It is clear is that we don't know one another well enough and we don't link up enough. This is improving - the task group has participated in an estate walkabout and an initial survey of the area via door to door visits and questionnaires in key locations to baseline people's feelings about Selby North and to try to identify people who might be willing to get more involved.
The group's initial focus is on children and young people as they are a priority for residents both in terms of wanting more facilities for children and anxiety around anti-social behaviour and drug use. Members attended Selby fun day to try to identify what facilities young people want. Attendance at further events is planned and services are working together to raise awareness of support and activities available during the summer.
Work is taking place to identify health priorities and to see how co-operation can help signpost residents and refer to other sources of help.
This area is included in "Big Local" and the project will support the long term work of getting residents to work together to access funding to meet some shared community desires.
How will this case study improve health and reduce health inequalities?
People tend to have improved health outcomes in communities where there is good social interaction and people feel safe. This community has a high turnover of residents (evidenced by local community primary school) and there is the potential for developing tension as Eastern European residents become a small but identifiable minority group. This project seeks to improve community cohesion and the belief is that by doing this health outcomes will improve. Developing better joint working and community visibility will also provide better opportunities for raising awareness of health issues and delivering interventions at community and individual level.
Contact details
Tom Jenkinson, corporate development officer
North Yorkshire County Council
Tel: 01609 533808
Email: tom.jenkinson@northyorks.gov.uk
