Communications Brief

August 2013

What is Ayrshire 21 all about?[1]

Ayrshire 21 is a programme to encourage local action across rural Ayrshire. It is working with 21 communities to help them gear up for sustainable community development by:

  • encouraging more involvement and interest in their area
  • bringing people together
  • helping people become more active in their community
  • strengthening local democracy so people have more of a say
  • assessing needs and issues and planning for change
  • being innovative
  • becoming better organised to implement plans
  • cooperating with other communities
  • influencing decisions

The communities taking part include those that have missed out in the past – where people are frustrated at the lack of progress or development; where there are stresses in the local economy or social problems, or where there are opportunities for change to be grasped. We will prioritise those who need it most – particularly groups in a period of transition or facing new challenges.

What’s on offer to communities?

  • Personal support - helping groups to identify what they’re good at and where they need to improve or become more effective
  • Helping groups to fully understand their community, its assets, strengths and problems, to develop a plan of action in order to make their required changes
  • Training and learning opportunities to help groups become better organised, more influential and more sustainable
  • Supporting groups to put their plan into action
  • Helping groups increase their profile and get recognition for what they do
  • A closer relationship with decision makers to help plans be financed and improvements be sustained
  • Possibility for community agents to be employed to work with your community
  • Networking with other groups to share learning and experiences
  • Building a strong Ayrshire-wide forum to attract investment in the future

How does it work?

Ayrshire 21 is funded until December 2013 through the Ayrshire LEADER programme, and managed by the three Ayrshire councils. The work is being carried out by the Scottish Community Development Centre, Scotland’s Rural College, Coalfields Regeneration Trust, STAR Development Group, Alan Jones Associates and Ailsa Horizons.

In more detail

Rural Ayrshire 21 is in four components, one in each of the three Ayrshire council areas, and a managing agent programme. It is an intensive programme, as it required to be complete by the end of 2012. The programme centres on identifying and working with 21 communities (in practice there are 26) with seven participating from each Ayrshire local authority area. They are all ‘cold spot’ areas for resource investment and are seen to have relatively weak community structures. The aims are:

  • Widening of community engagement
  • Visioning for the future
  • Capacity building process
  • Establishing effective partnerships

A pan-Ayrshire Steering Group has been established, which the managing agent reports to. The contractor partners are SCDC and Scotland’s Rural College (managing agents), Alan Jones Associates working with Ailsa Horizons (South Ayrshire), Coalfield Regeneration Trust working with Star Development Group (East Ayrshire) and SCDC in North Ayrshire. Contractors provide direct support to communities and facilitating partnerships drawing on a combination of training, mentoring and tailored development support. Over the contract period there is a process involving selection of communities, establishing contact, local engagement and local action planning, all supported by local training and research and learning. The expected outputs include:

  • 21 local awareness raising events
  • 5 pan Ayrshire training events
  • 30 local training courses, 200 people
  • 5 community agents
  • 2 pan Ayrshire conferences
  • 21 local action plans
  • Research and evaluation report

The outcomes anticipated are that residents in the 21 localities are more connected and more active in community affairs, that community organisations in 21 localities have a clearer understanding of local needs, issues, strengths and weaknesses, that the local communities strengthen their engagement in decision making processes to achieve investment and that public agencies have a clearer understanding of rural community issues and more productive engagement with community aspirations.

The communities and work so far

The seven communities taking part in East Ayrshire areNew Cumnock, Logan, Mauchline, Fenwick, Darvel, NewmilnsandAuchinleck. Steering groups have been established in each community and a first meeting has taken place in each community with follow-up meetings held in Newmilns and Mauchline. The consultants are planning to carry out a process of community engagement – which will include a Community Views Survey, Stakeholder Interviews and Focus Group meetings, Community Profile, Open Day Community Event and to produce reports for each of these engagement activities. Support is provided to individual staff by email, phone and face to face meetings to support the community engagement process and ensure quality control. On a wider platform, participating communities in East Ayrshire and across Ayrshire are being supported to share lessons and experience, and to develop strategic partnerships.

In North Ayrshire work is well under way with each of the seven communities in the programme: Beith, Dalry, Dreghorn, FairlieKilbirnie, Skelmorlie, and Springside.

Community Strengths Assessments have been completed in six, while in the seventh, Beith, this will be incorporated in the stakeholder engagement process. Steering groups have been established in most of the communities: the exceptions are Dreghorn where a collaboration between the Community Association and the Youth Group is being set up; Fairlie where a meeting is to take place in late July to build on interests already expressed, and in Beith where the Development Trust is likely to act as a steering group. The support agency assessment has been completed, and the launch event took place in Dalry on 17th April. No local training events have taken place to date, although community agents, community organisation members and young people have participated in the Ayrshire-wide programme. Training in the use of VOiCe is planned, and a VOiCE record is established for each of the seven communities. Glasgow University has been commissioned to run an Activate training course which will be open to 20 community participants. Many and varied community engagement events have taken place and will continue.

In South Ayrshire twelve, rather than seven, communities are taking part. They are:

Annbank ,Coylton, Craigie, Crosshill, Kirkmichael , Straiton, Dundonald, Dunure, Loans, Maybole, Minishant and Symington. Within South Ayrshire the initial tasks for the rural communities identified was to engage with the communities selected and communicate with them, highlighting and profiling Ayrshire 21 growing rural communities together. There was success with some of the communities who have already strong Community Councils or strong active Groups within the community. Where the team attended meetings and gave a presentation on Ayrshire 21 they have been able to establish good key contacts for networking for the remainder of the project.However some of the communities that did not have a strong infrastructure within the community through groups were harder to access. This created a challenge to identify key contacts within the community that would be willing to become active and motivated to be involved in the project.

Building community capacity[2]

Rural Ayrshire 21 is all about ‘growing’ stronger communities that can have a strong voice in shaping the future of their village or community; take a lead in setting up and running needed local initiatives; get the funding and support they need and work together across the Ayrshires to learn from each other and link to development agencies and others. To do this means having the opportunity, the motivation and the capacity.Rural Ayrshire 21 is the opportunity.

The motivation is in the communities involved – local groups are best placed to know what’s needed and to make the case: again Rural Ayrshire 21 can help. The capacity is what it takes to make the change: and Rural Ayrshire 21 is here to support it.

But what is community capacity anyway? A useful definition is: ‘Activities, resources and support that strengthens the skills, abilities and confidence of people and community groups to take effective action and leading roles in the development of communities’. This definition breaks into four key components:

Skills: the skills, knowledge and confidence that helps communities, community organisations and their members to be effective in achieving their aims, to participate fully in community life, and benefit from community activity

Organisation: the development and activity of community groups and organisations, and how well they work in the interests of the community

Equality: the extent to which community and voluntary groups are inclusive, and work to build equality in their communities

Involvement: the extent to which community organisations encourage local involvement and influence decision making and change

Communities need all four to be really effective, so what this means for Ayrshire 21 is that communities will be supported to assess and develop their community capacity and the support they get from local authorities and other agencies will be reviewed and improved. Plans will be drawn up both for building capacity as well as for local action – the two work hand in hand.

Discussion points

  • Are community organisations in contact with each other and with wider networks to access resources and share learning and ideas?
  • Can community groups bring about tangible and beneficial change for their community?
  • Do community organisations involve and include all interests and identities in their work?
  • Are community organisations effective in exerting influence and articulating their priorities in planning and decision making structures?

Action Research by, in and for Communities[3]

This means research that is conducted by, with and for people, rather than research on people. The starting point is with communities, and communities are fully involved throughout the process. The research is focused on making a difference to the problems or issues that affect people’s lives – this means that direct action will happen as a result of (and during) the research

It is research that wants to make change …

  • To a situation e.g. a community meeting space, to a service, to an area, etc.
  • To practice e.g. how we can be more effective, how we can respond better to the needs of communities
  • To a policy – e.g. to influence policy on the service needs of carers, or the communication needs of people with a learning disability, etc.

Successful community action research in recent times have led to Creetown Initiative – development and successful funding (£190k raised so far) of community facility [change to a situation]; Clackmannanshire Disability Awareness Group (DAG) – various pieces of research to demonstrate the needs of disabled people in Alloa – leading to successful bids for £100k for a variety of local projects [change to a situation]; Homelessness issue in Stirling – production of DVD about poor service provision, led to funding for further work to impact on service delivery [change to practice]; Enable – joint research project between Castle Douglas and North Ayrshire focusing on issues of support and resources for carers over 50. Use of the findings to influence policy and planning at local and national level [change to policy]

The research process goes through several stages, including:

  • Thinking about your research question
  • What will you gain from your research
  • What skills/resources do you have or need?
  • Thinking about your research methods
  • Engaging with your community

These link to the stages in Ayrshire 21 to do with mapping and assessment, and community engagement and visioning. Later stages of the process include making sense of and using your findings to move from research to action. These correspond with the stages in Ayrshire 21 concerned with action planning and planning for sustainability and influence.

There are many methods that lend themselves to community action research. These include

  • Questionnaires/surveys (various methods)
  • Social media
  • Story dialogue
  • Walking along with people
  • VOX box/video box
  • Drawings and photographs
  • Focus groups
  • Semi-structured interviews

For more information, the ARC resource is available here.

Some useful websites

Discussion Points

  • How would you/could you use community-led action research approaches in the areas that you are working in?
  • What would be the benefits of doing so?
  • What would be the challenges involved?

Engaging your community and planning your project[4]

The success of Ayrshire Rural 21 is largely dependent on effective engagement. This means both the extent to which the 21 communities engage with their residents in developing the community action plans, and the extent to which effective engagement is established between the communities and the local authorities and other bodies who should support the implementation of the action plans.

The definition of community engagement in the National Standards for Community Engagement reads:

“Developing and sustaining a working relationship between one or more public body and one or more community group, to help them both to understand and act on the needs or issues that the community experiences”

For communities, this means that community organisations should know about and understand the whole community, that they should be experienced in engaging with people and mobilising and energising the community. They should make best use of the assets and resources they have to build a convincing argument in their action plans, so they will be well prepared to engage with decision makers, making a strong case for the changes needed.

In building these relationships and making a strong case, the National Standards are an invaluable resource. They remind everybody of the importance of ten factors:

  • Involvement – making sure everybody with an interest gets involved
  • Support – being aware of barriers to involvement and removing them
  • Planning – gathering good evidence and agreeing purpose and action
  • Methods – need to be fit for purpose
  • Working Together – having clear procedures and being effective and efficient
  • Sharing Information - getting communication in place and working
  • Working with others – bringing in others who can assist or support change
  • Improvement – developing everybody’s skills, knowledge and confidence
  • Feedback – so communities and agencies know about what has been achieved
  • Monitoring and Evaluation – to ensure the engagement achieves its purpose and that the Standards have been observed.

Communities also should be clear about the purpose of the engagement they are carrying out. Depending on the purpose, several levels of engagement are possible:

  • Informing: This means we are only going to tell people what we plan to do.
  • Consulting: This means we will offer people restricted options to choose between.
  • Engage: to take shared decisions - this means the community will influence options and choices of action.
  • Engage: to take shared action - this means the community will share in any action taken.
  • Community led action - this means the community will lead the action.

It is only the last three of these that are about community-led development. The starting point is to think about the information you have, and the information you need.

  • What do we need to know?
  • What do we already know?
  • What don’t we know?
  • How will we find out?
  • Are we sure that it is an issue for the whole community?
  • Who else in the community is interested?
  • What agencies have an interest – or should have an interest?
  • Are there any conflicts of interest?
  • How can we enable all voices to be heard?

As well as thinking about needs and interests, it is also important to think from the start about the outcomes you hope to achieve. Outcomes are the changes that occur or the difference that is made for individuals, groups, families, organisations and communities and should set the direction for planning and actions. They answer the ‘so what?’ question. So it is important to think about what is each group in the community is looking for; whether they are the same things, or can differences be accommodated; what will success look like, and what barriers to success can be anticipated?

Once the outcomes are clear, a plan can be put together. This should include thinking about the resources that will be needed, whether money, expertise, local knowledge, or time and energy; whether any specialist advice or support will be needed; what would be the best methods to use, and what actions need to be taken by whom, and when. The plan should also include the ways in which records will be kept, progress checked and actions co-ordinated. As the plan is put into practice some of the key challenges will be to keep the stakeholders involved, motivated and mobilised, to watch for obstacles and keep communication going; to make sure that people are working well together – that everybody is clear and confident and that conflicts are being dealt with. You will also want to make sure you learn from your successes – and your mistakes, and feed back these lessons to both the community and the agencies working with you.