Case Studies
Examples follow of how partners have worked together to deliver against the Strong Resilient Communities intervention and One Newport’s well-being objectives.
Annual Report 2021-22
Annual Report 2020-21
Annual Report 2019-20
Annual Report 2018-19
Making Ringland and Alway stronger and more resilient to crime
Newport is one of five areas across England and Wales taking part in a Home Office programme to tackle serious and organised crime (SOC). To do this a series of projects are underway to reduce crime, reduce the impact of SOC on communities and protect the most vulnerable members of society from exploitation by criminals. Part of this work is concentrating on Ringland and Alway as intelligence and crime figures show that serious and organised crime has a foothold in the area and we are aiming to tackle it by making the community stronger and more resilient.
We commissioned an organisation called Mutual Gain who are specialists in developing ‘social capital’ to lead on this work.
Stronger ‘social capital’ will help to prevent crime, make people feel safer and support victims of crime. It will help with a longer-term solution to the issues faced in these communities, which cannot be dealt with solely through use of enforcement. To build social capital Mutual Gain have been collaborating partners in Ringland and Alway and also involving members of the community for example Alway Community Association, members of the Youth Parliament and individual residents. Local councillors have also played a part in promoting the project.
There are 3 strands to the Mutual Gain work in Ringland and Alway:
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- The ‘Connecting Café’ was a community engagement event held in February where 42 local people attended and identified their main crime and community safety concerns and ideas to tackle them. Good levels of engagement were experienced at the event and the key issues raised were drugs, antisocial behaviour, dangerous driving, mental health and activities for young people.
- The Community Grant Scheme, a participatory budgeting project where the local community where given responsibility for deciding which projects received funding from a community grant scheme. Almost 100 local people took part in the participatory budgeting event, which took place in April. Of the fifteen projects that applied for funding, four were successful and will provide diversionary activities for young people, mental health support and a local school radio station.
- Community Coaching provides structured support to help local people build self-confidence to pursue their ideas, projects and goals to make Ringland and Alway better places to live. For example reducing litter; improving services for young people, people with disabilities and the elderly; creating a community newsletter and improved in engagement with the police.
Many of these approaches to place based working are new in Newport for example participatory budgeting, and take partnership approaches and citizen involvement and empowerment to new levels.
They also represent an asset based approach to community development building on what is “strong, not what is wrong” where local people take an active approach in shaping their communities. The project also links with strategic projects in the area including the new neighbourhood hub, the health centre, integrated well-being networks and major redevelopment of housing and facilities, which should help secure long-term improvement in well-being.
The feedback from local people who have been involved in this work has been overwhelmingly positive saying things like:
“What a great way to get the community involved in designing their own services”
“Great to give local people a voice into their community”
To view more about the Strong Resilient Communities intervention click here.