Towards development processes for 'best city outcomes' much of which has been tried in Leeds.

1. Driven By Me...Helping
People To Help Themselves
The Case and a Proposal for Person
Centred Community, Social and
Economic Development or
‘Building Civic Enterprise’
Mike Chitty
http://realisedevelopment.net
07788 747954

2. So what does HE know?
• Youth work
• Biophysics degree
• Post Grad Cert Ed (dist)
• Science and Outdoor Ed Teacher (constructivist)
• Special Ed – EBD 7-16 Leeds SS
• Sub Saharan Africa – DFID - development work
• YT and ET Trainer Training
• Outward Bound – Head of Access and Inclusion
• Enterprise and Entrepreneurship – DTI/SBS
• Business Link University
• Sirolli Institute – Community Development
• Progresive Manager’s Network

3. agenda
Process
• Present some thinking
• Explore relevance
• Making it happen
• Next steps

4. “In my ethnographic work, with a head full of American
methodologies and theory, I thought I knew a bit about
local government, urban and social policy and the
theory of community and activism.
However, I knew as Betty was to tell me “Bugger all!”.
All I knew was learned, abstract and distant from
reality.
Betty knew it from 60 years of lived experience.”
Neil McInroy CEO, CLES, Manchester

5. Relationships make all the
difference in the world
Old questions...
– What’s wrong with you?
– How do we fix you?
– What do we do with you if we can’t
fix you?

6. New questions....
• How can we help you to discover and
move towards a more desirable future?
• How can we offer wanted assistance in a
way that promotes experiences that you
value?
• How can we offer wanted assistance in
ways that support and promote, rather
than diminish, community capability and
resilience?

7. Important questions…
• Is ANYONE really engaged in your life?
• Are there people who are imbued with the
belief and hope for a brighter, better future
for you?
• If not, how might such people be found or
how might that sense of hope be instilled
in those committed to walking with the
you?

8. Many of the failures of the current
system result from not knowing
the individuals we serve in a
meaningful sense. We don’t know
people’s stories and we don’t
even notice that we don’t know
them.

9. Progress?
• From passive consumption and
acceptance to active participation
• It’s the me-conomy, stupid!
• Influence behaviour through relationships

10. Housing Health Crime and Grime Sustainability
Education and Skills Worklessness Community Cohesion Wellbeing
Supply Side
Demand Side

11. Demand Side Stimulation
• To significantly increase the number of
residents who actively seek specialist
services and support because of their
relevance and potential to their own
progress
• To communicate the effectiveness of
specialist services in helping people make
progress

12. Demand Side Stimulation
• To encourage specialist providers to
deliver inclusive and person centred
services
• To provide feedback on what works and
what doesn’t
• To provide ‘oven ready’ opportunities for
specialist service providers

13. Access
• Every resident who wants it can have
access to a person centred
coach/facilitator to
– be honest
– develop aspirations
– make plans
– acquire skills
– take action, and
– make progress
• Any project within the law

14. community coach
network gatekeeper/panel member
local people

15. It is all about the relationship
• Compassionate
• Credible
• Competent
• Accessible
• Visible
• Responsive – radical outreach

16. Facilitation
• Development of personal vision and self
belief
• Brokerage to specialist service providers
and support in using them effectively
• Facilitation of whole person – centred on
aspirations and dreams – not needs and
deficiencies
• Emergence of identity and well-being

17. Progress is Made on Two Legs
• We have an efficient and well managed
strategic leg – top down
• We need a well managed and efficient
responsive leg – enabling individuals to
engage with strategic services and
infrastructure – bottom up

18. strategic responsive
coaches
health
employment
enterprise
crime
community
housing
education
LSP community
etc
panel

19. Responsive Infrastructure
• Coach network – recruit and select from existing
base - volunteers?
• Community Panels – to:
– select, introduce, manage, supervise, support,
evaluate and contract with coaches
– develop an inclusive panel and service provision
– to measure and improve service impact
– to secure independent investment – sustainability
– manage web 2.0 networking and knowledge
management
– provide monthly support for coaches

20. We need a parallel process of
community development,
completely beyond the control of
council workers, state employees
and elected representatives.
Perhaps?

21. Costs
• Each panel to serve 30-60 000 local people
• Annual costs up to £50 000
• Start – up costs circa £75 000 (100 days training
and support over 2 years)
• Develop web infrastructure – web 2.0 based
• Develop training and delivery infrastructure
• No additional office or workspace requirement
• Generate revenue from selling expertise to other
LAs
• Project sustainability through subscriptions from
strategic beneficiaries of referrals

22. Impacts
• Each full time coach supports circa 250
residents each year – 660-700 sessions
• Cost per assist = circa £200
• 10-20 business starts
• 50-100 into education and skills
• 50-100 into other projects, volunteering/activism
• For some (perhaps) no measurable impact
• Significantly increased well being
• Buzz of optimism

23. Implementation
• Provide on the basis of want not need
• Competitive selection process
• 1-3 projects in year 1-2
• Expand by 2-3 projects per year
• Objective to cover the city (10 panels)
within 7 years
• To provide a platform for national
development

24. Other components
• Community Conversations (place based –
cf Chapeltown Conversations)
• Personal peer support/group coaching –
Progress School
• Civic/Community Enterprise Accelerators
• Theme based civic engagement – dispov,
Leeds Empties, Cultural Conversations
• Innovation Labs
• Results Factories

25. What Is Required?
• Opportunity to develop and pilot
prototypes
• Partners to co-create around the vision of
a responsive infrastructure
• Circa £500 000 to run three pilot projects
over 3 years (2 years in delivery)

26. what could we
do over the next
30 days?

27. • help you to build the coalition and the vision
• explore reservations and concerns
• develop understanding of impact on specialist
services
• develop fully costed proposals
• feasibility assessments in communities
• recruit and train panels
• recruit and train coaches
• develop monitoring and evaluation frameworks