Contents
1 Introduction & Background 2
2 Assets in Milkstone and Deeplish 5
2.1 List of mapped physical assets 6
2.2 Additional Assets 8
2.3 What families really value about local assets 10
2.4 Barriers to accessing assets 11
3 Voluntary sector organisation profiles in Milkstone & Deeplish 12
3.1 Deeplish Community Centre 14
3.2 Home-Start Rochdale Borough 17
1 Introduction & Background
A partnership of public sector agencies from across Greater Manchester, with support and representation from local voluntary and private sector leads, is developing a New Delivery Model and business case for Greater Manchester’s early years services.
This partnership are also, with The Children’s Society (TCS) as lead, developing a stage 2 bid and development plan for the Big Lottery Fund’s Fulfilling Lives: A Better Start programme. The purpose of the bid is to provide a Better Start in life for children from pre-birth to three years old with a particular focus on communication and language, social and emotional development and nutrition.
The rationale behind the Better Start programme has been heavily influenced by the work of the Dartington Social Research Unit, appointed by the Big Lottery Fund, to support the Stage 2 process in 15 shortlisted areas, including Greater Manchester. Dartington Social Research Unit’s work emphasises evidenced based interventions[1], preventative work, and the need for change to be community driven:
“Effective partnerships benefit significantly from the involvement of community representatives. This is not just a 'nice to have'. There is now robust evidence showing that the authentic involvement of the community increases the impact of services on child outcomes[2].”
The bid, if successful, would fund intensive delivery in five wards and inform learning across Greater Manchester.
In order to inform the bid and support wider knowledge development, TCS contracted Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation (GMCVO), in partnership with our local members and networks, and with the support of partner agencies, to profile assets in the five bid wards.
The aim of this work, with the support of local public and voluntary sector partners, has been to identify and better understand what:
· parents and relevant community networks value in their community
· local additional assets and resources could support positive change for the benefit of parents and their children
· local additional assets and resources could support the Early Years New Delivery Model.
In doing this, this work aims to build on and complement the findings of the community engagement work carried out by The Innovation Unit, with support and coordination from GMCVO, and the Wellbeing Profile findings.
Looking ahead, and to put this work in context: How can communities play a bigger role in delivering ‘a better start’? How can we mobilise community driven change?
The Five Bid Wards
This work has focused on five wards that were chosen in line with The Big Lottery Fund’s criteria. These five wards are therefore the wards (one per Greater Manchester local authority in order to maximise local public, voluntary and private sector engagement and potential) that had the highest percentages of ‘child poverty’, ‘low birth weight births’, ‘obese children (Year 6)’ and the lowest percentage of ‘child development at age 5’.
This asset profiling exercise, therefore, has sought to build a picture of the strengths and resources that lie within the five ‘bid wards’:
Coldhurst (Oldham)
Farnworth (Bolton)
Langworthy (Salford)
Milkstone and Deeplish (Rochdale)
Moss Side (Manchester).
This report is about the ward of Milkstone and Deeplish in Rochdale.
GMCVO’s approach to mapping assets
In order to gather as much useful information and local knowledge regarding assets, while working to tight bid timelines, a multi-layered approach was used. We felt that this would better bring out the different aspects of each place. Alongside insight gained through the engagement events held by The Innovation Unit and supported by GMCVO, there were five routes to identifying local assets.
Firstly, identification of key local assets and resources by parents for themselves and their children. This approach was central to our work and, to do this, we appointed Community Asset Investigators from each ward. Each investigator worked in one ward only (December 2013/January 2014) and was selected based on their active involvement, via locally rooted community organisations, in the early years worlds of their respective ward. It was very important, in the selection criteria, that Community Asset Investigators were connected into local community networks. Investigators took a variety of approaches, including holding workshops with parents and families, and talking one-to-one with parents in their ward. The format of these conversations was open-ended but guided by the three areas, defined by A Better Start and identified by Dartington as critical to having a better start in life: language development, social and emotional development, and nutrition.
In Milkstone and Deeplish, the role of Community Asset Investigator was carried out by Deeplish Community Centre (see 3.1 on page 14 for further information)
A series of three focus groups, involving 80 participants, were held in order to gain a community perspective on living in the Milkstone and Deeplish ward. They respectively involved:
· Parents / Children
· Local Community Organisations
· Local community members
Residents were asked:
· What do you think are the positive aspects of living in Milkstone & Deeplish?
· What do you think are the negative aspects of living in Milkstone & Deeplish?
· Which assets of the ward do you most use and why?
· What improvements would you like to see in the ward?
Secondly, an online survey was circulated to front line workers operating in each area. The survey was kept deliberately short and again was focused on identifying assets linked to the wellbeing of families with young children.
Thirdly, desk-based research was conducted to complement community-led identification of assets and resources.
Fourthly, we carried out interviews with voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (Voluntary Sector / VCSE) organisations supporting families in each of the wards, some of whom are profiled here or in the ward-level reports. This provided more detail on the assets that families' value in their area, including how:
· individual, local organisations currently contribute to a better start and
· the nature of their assets (e.g. their volunteer base, income streams, established links and relationships within a particular community).
Fifthly, by analysing the scale of resources drawn down into the wards by Voluntary Sector groups. These findings were based on research carried out by the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research which was published in a series of State of the Sector reports which included: Greater Manchester (Sheffield Hallam University: May 2013) and seven local authority areas in Greater Manchester. There were individual reports on four of the five bid ward authority areas (Bolton, Manchester, Oldham, and Salford).[3] The State of the Sector reports, besides drawing on the latest available sector data, incorporated survey responses from 1,403 VCSE groups from across Greater Manchester.
Through a strong emphasis on community-led identification of assets and resources, this multi-layered approach has sought to find out about the buildings, spaces, services, existing and potential voluntary sector activity, and any other potential assets like informal support networks or key individuals in each of the five wards that currently contribute to a better start in life.
This asset profiling exercise has sought to build a picture of the strengths and resources that lie within the Milkstone & Deeplish community, and identify gaps where new approaches may be needed to enhance the ability of the community to build on its strengths. What you will see here is not an exhaustive analysis of the ward’s assets, but rather a ‘profile’ that presents clear messages about what works and what the key assets are. This document provides a ‘snapshot’ at this given time, with potential for further investigation to build a more detailed picture.
Through a mixture of techniques, from online surveys to face-to-face interviews we have begun to paint a picture of the Milkstone and Deeplish community.
2 Assets in Milkstone and Deeplish
We know from the statistical data that in Milkstone and Deeplish, 38% of children live in poverty and referrals to children’s social care are well above national average. 87% of children do not have English as a first language, however, the readiness for school measures on communication, reading and writing are well below national averages.
The ward has 9446 residents: 4850 males and 4596 females. The population of children aged 0-15 is higher compared to the overall Rochdale Borough statistics for this age range, which is 21.2%. The largest ethnic group in the Milkstone and Deeplish ward is ‘Pakistani’ with 50.96%. The second largest ethnic group is ‘White British’ with 38.73%. In comparison to other wards in the Rochdale Borough, Milkstone and Deeplish has the largest ethnic population, which is not White British. This ward is not comparable to other wards in the Rochdale Borough, which have a large White British ethnicity. (Source: Stats and Maps - Rochdale Borough's information hub).
Milkstone and Deeplish covers the town centre and surrounding areas of south central Rochdale. It is a very densely built community, contains a mixed stock of industrial, commercial and retail property. The housing, a mixture of poor quality Victorian housing with an infill of council properties built in the second half of the 20th century, is often in poor condition with higher than average occupancy rates of terraced properties in need of improvement.
A number of major roads and transport arteries form physical boundaries. There are a number of steep hills that make pushing prams and wheelchairs and accessing locations within and around the area problematic.
There is also a lack of open space. What exists is generally of poor quality and in need of improvement.
A generally low skill and educational attainment base amongst both the white and Asian communities contribute to high levels of deprivation.
As with the other bid wards, Milkstone & Deeplish has a significant number of identified problems. The focus of this work, however, is to identify what does work, for parents of young children, and what stops those things from working better.
What you will see here is not an exhaustive analysis of the ward’s assets but a ‘snapshot’ at this given time, with potential for further investigation to build a more detailed picture.
Milkstone & Deeplish – link to online map available here.
NB – This map is a work in progress and serves an illustrative purpose – please report any inaccuracies to GMCVO.
The map above is illustrative of the physical assets that have been identified through GMCVO’s work. They range from the obvious, such as Children’s Centres, to the more obscure like galleries and social venues. Whilst physical assets are important, it must be remembered that they are only locations where activities take place, and there will be many other assets alongside those identified here, such as small corner shops, cafés and childminding networks that will also be valued by, and valuable to, parents of young children.
We identified around 60 physical assets that are valued by children and families in and around the area. Good transport links including the railway and new Metrolink tram connect the ward to Oldham and Manchester and offers opportunities to access places outside the area.
The full list, to date, of identified local assets is below and on the following pages.
2.1 List of mapped physical assets
Children’s CentresHoward Street Children's Centre
Castlemere Children's Centre
Deeplish Children's Centre
Newbold Sure Start Children's Centre
Health facilities
Abbasi Dr S A
Bhima Dr G w D
Dr F A Crook
Drake Street Surgery
Nye Bevan House
Community
Castlemere Community Centre
Council for Voluntary Service Rochdale
Deeplish Community Centre
Deeplish Youth Group
Freehold Community Group
Rochdale Women’s Welfare Association
Sudden & Brimrod Community Centre
Backdoor Music Project
Multi Cultural Arts and Media Centre
Mustafa Islamic Centre
Sparth Community Centre
Spotland and Falingne Community Centre
Wardleworth Community Centre Association
Faith Buildings
Al Furqan Mosque
Central Mosque Rochdale
Dar ul Munawar, Ghamgholia Jamia Mosque
Darul Ilm, Rochdale Darul Uloom
Jamia Masjid Rochdale
JamiaGhausia Mosque & Islamic Centre
Light of Islam Academy/Jamia Masjid Chashtia Munir-ul-Islam
Neeli Mosque
St Andrew's (LEP) Church
St John The Baptist R C Church
St Luke’s Church
The Islamic Centre
Trinity Methodist Church
Zion Baptist Church in Deeplish
Newbold Baptist Church
Outdoor play
Broadfield Park
Hare Street Play area
Mandale Park
Rainbow Park
Stoneyfield Kick Pitch – Boundary Street
Indoor Play
The Sanctuary Trust Noah's Ark Children's Activity Centre
Daycare
Crescent Nursery
Fisherfield Farm Children's Day Nursery (Edinburgh Way)
Fisherfield Farm Nursery (Sandbrook)
Genesis Day Care Nursery
Creche n Co Ltd
Schools and education
Ashfield Valley Primary School
Broadfield Community Primary School
Deeplish Community Primary School
Hopwood Hall College Rochdale Campus
Rochdale Sixth Form College
St John’s School
Other
Crescent Radio
Rochdale Bus Station
Rochdale Community Transport
Rochdale Interchange Station
Rochdale Pioneers Museum and Centre
Rochdale Train/Tram Station
Sandbrook Retail Park
Touch Stone Art Gallery
Metro Moneywise Credit Union Ltd
2.2 Additional Assets
Listed below are assets identified that are not plotted onto the map. This is because they either;
· Have no single location
· Is situated outside of the map area (but have been recognised as an asset valued by those living/working in the ward)
· A person/people
Additional Assets· Antenatal/postnatal session , healthy child drop-in session and family journey sessions (Delivered at Deeplish Children’s Centre)
· Barnardo's Rochdale - offerssupport and assistance to disabled children and young people(pre-birth to 19 years old) and their families
· Bookstart Corner – targeted home intervention programme for children between 12 – 24 months.
· Bookstart Pack for babies and 2-year olds
· Early Break – Holding Families (service that aims to help children, parents and families with problems associated with significant parental substance misuse)
· Environmental Action Group
· Health Trainer
· Home-Start Rochdale Borough
· Parenting Support Team (Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council)
· Police Community Support Officer
· Rochdale and District Play Action Council (RADPAC)
· Rochdale MIND
· Save the Children ‘Eat Sleep, Learn, Play!’ programme (Supports children living in the most severe poverty by providing families with household essentials, like a child's bed, a cooker or educational books and toys)
· Stories and Songs Sessions (Thursday mornings at Howard Street Children’s Centre)
· Women’s Housing Action Group
· Youth Worker
2.3 What families really value about local assets
In early years settings, parents value giving their children the opportunity to interact with other children outside of their family.