Engagement methods
Community profiling: community mapping
Community mapping is an approach which works equally well for geographical and non-geographical communities. It brings together members of the targeted community - typically through a workshop - and asks them to describe and "map" or draw their community, its connections and relationships, its assets, and its sources of problems or tensions. This approach clearly places community perspectives at the core of the activity, and defines and captures community through the experience and perspectives of its members.
This approach was heavily influenced by two US academics and community development practitioners (Kretzmann and McKnight 1993), and further information can be found on:
http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd/abcdbackground.html
By drawing on the concepts of social capital, quality of life indicators and models of a strong community, OPM designed a community workshop process for Camden Council to help identify priorities for action in each of their Neighbourhood Renewal Areas. The workshops looked not only at the physical aspects of the community but also at the less tangible aspects such as social networks, trust and pride. After piloting the process in two areas we then designed a toolkit for Camden Council to enable community development workers and other staff to carry out workshops in further Neighbourhood Renewal Areas in the Borough. The findings from the workshops have been used to inform the priorities for funding projects in each area and may be repeated in the future as part of the evaluation of neighbourhood renewal activity. |
Further background information can be found in the international development literature, where participatory appraisal methods have been a major feature for development projects:
http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/particip/index.html
| Northumbria Police Authority used community profiling to ensure that consultation responses from a structured questionnaire were representative of the area as a whole. From a response of 13% to a household drop of a questionnaire, data was collated about the return from respondent demographics and compared with the profiling data. It was established that the response adequately reflected the composition of the whole area. |
The asset mapping process can also involve the use of community interviewers to ensure that a wider cross-section of the community can participate, and to capture more extensive survey data. This kind of community surveying represents a useful participatory tool, involving members of the community in defining, designing and executing community profiling activity. The Northumbria demonstration project used this approach in its work with remote rural communities.
Hard to reach groups
Identifying hard-to-reach groups in NorthumbriaAs part of a broader community mapping exercise in 2004, Northumbria Police Authority tried to identify its hard-to-reach communities. Based on an audit of census statistics and discussions with local authorities in Northumbria, it identified the following broad groups:
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A hard-to-reach group is any population grouping of significant size that local authorities and service providers find it difficult to engage with. These difficulties are usually caused by one or more of the following factors:
- different and/or less familiar interests and identities;
- comparative geographical isolation;
- a pattern of societal discrimination/victimisation.
The national Crime Reduction Unit see it as ‘essential that partnerships identify hard to reach specific to their area' (Crime Reduction Toolkit, 2003). Hard to reach groups often have a particular crime profile. For example, BME communities experience racist crime, and LGB communities experience homophobic crime. Other groups are hard to reach because of the nature and impact of particular crimes, such as victims of domestic violence, rape or sexual abuse.
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