SPREADING HOLISTIC & RE-EMPOWERING

Why Community Renewal? We chose Community Renewal for their incredibly effective method of identifying and engaging people who may not have thought that work was a possibility for them, using “animators” from similar backgrounds and often the same neighbourhood. The service also draws together local agencies to give a joined-up range of services for residents to access. Working with local people’s concerns first, they not only gain buy-in from local but also build lasting local capacity and lead people to education, employment and training in the process.

What do they do? Community Renewal uses a neighbourhood-wide, house-by-house approach to transforming the disempowered and workless culture of disadvantaged communities in Scotland. They work intensively with neighbourhoods of around 2000 households in areas with high levels of unemployment and health-related benefit claimants. In such an area, they typically engage 1700 people. To avoid stigma and discover local people’s needs and interests, they use community animators to knock on every door and get to know everyone in the area. They gradually build relationships with whole families and help people access services they need to move forward. Read more about their community approach to employability.

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While the ultimate aim is increased employment, improved wellbeing and a more dynamic and prosperous local culture, the animators listen to what people are most concerned about and act on that first. This can involve community development work on community safety, for example. As they gain trust, the animators help people who are not working to develop a personal plan. Animators also initiate social activities and community action groups in response to people’s interests. This develops confidence and employability skills and also creates capacity in the area that will stay beyond the life of the project.

The animators are backed by case managers and a multi-disciplinary neighbourhood team made up of local staff from partner agencies who work with the clients in whatever way they need to develop. The Community Renewal Centre has an open door approach and people are encouraged to drop in for a chat and a cup of tea.

Community Renewal tracks the contacts made, people’s aims, barriers and progress, both in story and database form. The database helps demonstrate the local community’s increasing assets. Since its launch in 2003 Community Renewal has developed community based employment projects in Renfrewshire, North Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire, Inverclyde, Stirling and Edinburgh. To date it has supported about 2500 people into jobs and a further 800 into education and training. Each project has on average 3.5 full time equivalent community animators and the results so far show that the work of each animator produces about 2 job outcomes per month.  You can download their evaluation from our Tools page.

Contact details

Nigel Green, Muirhouse Project Manager - Nigel will be taking part in the Stockholm study tour.

Tel: +44 131 332 8773
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Web: www.communityrenewal.org.uk