We have won a piece of work with the London Borough of Harrow. All the indicators are going in the right direction yet the perception of Social Cohesion is going backwards.
We will be running workshops in the community, for the Council and their partners and one for 6th formers in a school in order to understand what the underlying issues are.
We will almost certainly draw on some of Tim Aston’s “life journeys” work to tease out what might be happening to people at different stages of their lives to influence social cohesion, but we are looking for other thoughts on how we can really get people to share in a meaningful way what is driving the backward trend. At this stage all thoughts are welcomed and if this includes “Insights” that we could use to help people think differently – or to help them contribute in a constructive way – then this is welcome. I have used the blog as an experiment to see if this is a good way of getting the dialogue going and making it more transparent.
Here is an excellent report outlining the drivers of social cohesion. 681539
I think what you do now is to add your contributions as comments
Many thanks
Mark
http://www.co-intelligence.org/P-wisdomcouncil.html
This link refers to a process called the Wisdom Council
It is a unique way of bringing communities together to
tackle issues in their communities and to date it has
not been delivered in the UK. At the basis of it is the
Dynamic Facilitation process which starts with a problem
statement but through open dialogue the real problem
emerges and concensus is created. In short social
cohesion is achieved by the community tackling real
issues together and not by tackling social cohesion.
alexnairn — 20 August 2008 @ 9:12 am
I forgot to add that the Wisdom Council approach works
best when it becomes part of the infrasructure of the
community. Regular Wisdm Councils run throughout the
year bcome the “way we do business around here”. May I
be as crass as mention the obvious ongoing revenue
opportunity it this approach may bring.
alexnairn — 20 August 2008 @ 9:26 am