A story unfolds

Pendle Borough Council (libraries provided by Lanacashire) has just highlighted its initiative that is one of the outcomes from the research report into community cohesion commissioned by the Pendle Partnership.

Pendle asked Drew Mackie Associates to map work in local agencies, and to conduct a public attitude survey.  The key ways forward that they reported on were the strengthening of the sustainability of the network of agencies, and the need to

' spread the gospel of community cohesion, countering negative messages and preventing the alignment of negative issues with ethnic and cultural differences.'

The prime component of the attitude research was to use group storytelling as a tool to get 'under the skin of concepts that respondents know should have a positive answer and bringing out the nuances behind perceptions and attitudes.' A toolkit for this was developed that was used by groups throughout the borough (and presumaably this toolkit might be available for use elsewhere).

The report is well worth the read to examine issues of communication and trust ('the greatest agreement over who to trust was shared by Family and Friends (trusted) and Agencies (not trusted)'. You can download and read it  in pdf here (4.8Mb).

And the Pendle Borough initiative?  A weekly cartoon strip - Myths over Pendle (geddit?). The strips are designed to help bust 'myths' and improve community awareness and understanding of different cultures, ages and backgrounds in a friendly but funny way. Three have been published - and appear in the top ten downloads from the council site.