Realising Potential: Recognising Residents’ Achievement in Neighbourhood Renewal
Resident engagement is central to the Government’s strategy for neighbourhood renewal. The Neighbourhood Renewal Unit’s Learning Curve sets out a plan for ensuring that all the participants in neighbourhood renewal, including residents, can develop the skills, knowledge and behaviour they need to make a success of the enterprise.
The Learning Curve identifies three main roles for local residents, as:
 | Leaders |
| Experts |
| Emerging practitioners. |
This project shows how the learning needs arising from those roles and for volunteers can be met. A particular focus is the need to provide opportunities for residents to get jobs in neighbourhood renewal (objective 5 of the Learning Curve).
There are three good reasons why residents involved in regeneration programmes should get credit or recognition for their learning:
| Fairness – they deserve it |
| Incentive – it is a reward that encourages residents to get involved and to keep going |
| Making regeneration work – a credit system could mean that residents’ expertise is better harnessed and used to improve regeneration programmes, as volunteers or as paid staff. |
This project is about developing the best system of recognition, initially for the West Midlands, potentially for England as a whole. It builds on local strengths and attempts to rectify shortcomings.
The report consists of three main sections:
3. Context outlines the policy background to the project and
identifies the key developments with which it connects, both nationally
and regionally.
4. Findings reports on effective practice, mainly within the
region, which provides some building blocks for the future, and summarises
the outcomes of focus groups involving residents and regeneration
professionals.
5. Way Forward suggests an approach to meeting residents’ learning
needs consistent with the Learning Curve and proposes the main elements of
an action plan.
The project was commissioned by the Government Office of the West Midlands as part of its responsibility to develop a Skills and Knowledge plan for neighbourhood renewal in the region and carried out by NIACE, the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education. The project manager was Ann Selby and the lead consultant was Martin Yarnit. Dilbagh Dhami, principal consultant of Positive Action Ltd, set up and ran focus groups involving residents and professionals.
NIACE and the project consultants would like to thank the residents and practitioners who took part in the Discussion Forum, the Focus Groups or were interviewed for this report.
The report can be downloaded below or can be obtained from: Ann Selby, NIACE, 21 De Montfort Street, Leicester, LE1 7GE, 0116 204 4200
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