Civic Health

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Comment by Wayne Laconic on October 22, 2010 at 12:04pm

Hi benedict,

You would be very welcome to visit- and don't worry- we still have one fully-functional shed so there's somewhere you can have a cuppa.

Please give me a call or email me to suggest a few dates. Cheers!

Comment by Benedict Dellot on October 22, 2010 at 11:43am

Hi Wayne,

Really sorry to hear about what happened to the Eco Arts Project. If you would like I can come and discuss the project sometime in the next few weeks anyway if you would like?

Thanks,
Ben

Comment by Wayne Laconic on October 3, 2010 at 7:43pm

Hi Ben,

Sam, Jocelyn and Jamie from RSA have all visited the Eco Art Projects allotment at Dogsthorpe Road. We would welcome you as well to discuss Peterborough's 'civic health'.

Cheers,

Wayne (EAP)

Comment by Benedict Dellot on July 30, 2010 at 2:39pm

Hello all,

Just wanted to inform everyone about the Civic Health project that will be kicking off in Peterborough in the coming months. Those of you who were there at the Citizen Power launch will know slightly more about this but for those of you weren't, there's a brief summary of the project above.

Essentially, the project is about trying to create a tool that can understand the ability and willingness people have to shape the areas they live in and the public services that they use. But more than just using the tool to understand the 'civic health' and vibrancy of a particular neighbourhood or place, it should also be used to encourage and enable people to participate in their community.

Through a mixture of surveys and individual case-studies, the tool should be able to paint a clearer picture of the skills and qualities people need in order to get involved in their communities. This information can be used by local bodies to understand which areas or groups of people are most in need of assistance and where to better focus their efforts. But more importantly, the tool can be used by local community groups themselves and the results played back so that people can reflect on their own skills, opportunities and behaviours.

One of the other sides to this tool is that we want to design it so that it can collect not just information on behaviours and skills but also information about local organisations, community leaders, people who wish to be more actively engaged, and funding opportunities into a local 'civic directory' that everybody in a particular area can tap into to. So it's really a way of bringing out the hidden opportunities and assets that everyone has and then linking them with other people who may want to join up, get help or collaborate with one another - connecting the dots.

The first pilot of the tool will be trailled with recovering drug users involved in the Recovery Capital project. At a time when power is being handed back to the people, we can't assume that everybody has the ability to take advantage of these opportunities, especially the most vulnerable. So, we want to look at the ability of people recovering from substance miuse to be involved in the community, how they might access and shape the recovery services they use, their emotional well-being and a whole host of other areas.

That's it for now but I'll keep updating the pages and will start some discussions shortly. It would be really interesting to see what everybody thinks are the skills and qualities people need to participate locally and what kind of organisations, information etc you'd like to see on a 'civic directory'

Thanks

Ben