Tuesday, 24 May 2011

Power and policy

Toby Blume on 'community rights':

"The greatest concern I have about the introduction of the community rights, is also my biggest fear about the whole Big Society agenda... that government seems to have very little concern about how they are taken up by different groups. Despite Big Society’s strong language on ‘placing power in the hands of those who lack it’, there is little evidence to suggest that government wishes to actually do anything about this. If you accept that power is unequal and some groups are less powerful than others (as ‘those who lack it’ suggests), then surely you must take steps to ensure that specific effort is directed to the less powerful. I cannot believe that anyone with a modicum of intellectual capability can assume that this inequality will be addressed simply by giving everybody (the powerful and the non-powerful) the same opportunity and letting them get on with it. That is patently absurd as ‘any fule kno’ (as Molesworth would say), as the powerful are, by definition, better equipped to take advantage."

 

 

24 May 2011 06:39:00 | Governance and participation, Social policy

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'I didn't know I could': museums and young people looked after Last year I worked with Rebecca Linley and Martin Dudley on an evaluation of museum-based activities with children and young people looked after, and we were surprised by and impressed with the outcomes that we found. Our report (the MaCLA report) has now been published by Renaissance East of England, along with a summary and some case studies. The main points are these: The young people gained consistent benefits in terms of confidence, self-knowledge and identity; social skills; cultural capital; and learning. These outcomes can be attained reliably and sustainably, and can probably be accessed for considerably less than £30 per young person per hour. These are young people who either experience exclusion or are at risk of being excluded from many social and economic opportunities and benefits. The work is empowering because it targets young people’s options for empowering themselves. The observations and interviews were instructive in helping us appreciate some of the nuances of inclusion. In one instance a fairly withdrawn young man was ‘drawn in’ by the others in the group in sessions he attended. They arranged to meet up independently and invited him along. His carer told us that he did not mention it at the time and so he did not go. Her interpretation was that ‘inclusion has never happened to him before.’ These were initiatives designed exclusively for children or young people who are looked after. They were based in museums (although several initiatives involved extra-mural visits), and involved some kind of activity (usually both group and individual activity) such as drama, design, craft etc. The activities varied in number of sessions and duration, from a single to fifteen sessions and from 90 minutes to five and a half hours. The age range was 7-17 years. We argue that the activities are low risk and inexpensive; not addressing the young people’s needs is high risk and expensive.
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National schemes to promote neighbourliness: what impact? Some early results have been released from the evaluation of Neighbours Day Aotearoa 2011, which took place at the end of March. The survey is still open. Those who thought their neighbours would be "highly likely" to ask them for help increased by over 25% after Neighbours Day Aotearoa 2011. 57% felt more positive about their neighbours/neighbourhood. 74% said that they would be likely to participate with their neighbours in 2012, and a further 22.1% said they might.

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