Tony Hatfield's Retired Ramblings: Community Engagement Rubbish

May 23, 2005

Community Engagement Rubbish

This is a classic bit of Home Office Community Engagement drivel. Any comment on Pizza and Cola Focus Group? -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Janette Wallace Gedge, the Cheshire postholder, has developed a matrix of consultation, which has been used to prioritise consultation with particular groups. Using this matrix, young people were found to be a group with challenging local demographics and circumstances. To date, the force had not identified this group as a priority for consultation. Furthermore, an analysis of requests for assistance received by the force identified that the single issue the public complained about most in non-urgent calls was 'nuisance youths'.

Alsager Youth Forum (Pizza and Cola focus group) came about as a result of a number of complaints received by the local Police Community Action Team. A group of young people who were skateboarding in the local civic centre car park in the evenings and at weekends were seen to be causing a nuisance. Some of this group had also been skateboarding in other inappropriate places.

Action

Alsager Pizza and Cola focus group

The Community Action Team police officer and PCSO started to work with the skateboarders to identify the problem. As a result of the relationships they built up, seventeen young people attended the next Police Sector meeting to make their concerns known, and the PCSO arranged for three of the youths to attend a working group with Janette.

It was agreed that there should be a focus group with skateboarders and other young people. The working group was involved in thinking about the questions that would be asked. The Community Inspector and Janette checked for available funding sources with partner agencies and to make sure that at least some funding would be available to meet potential requests.

The focus group was held on Wednesday 28 April at the Alsager Civic Centre. Twenty-six young people attended. Using the 'Ask the Audience' kit and with pizza and orange juice supplied, Janette asked the questions, with the Community Action Team CSO and the PC helping with organisation. The attendance was limited to this group as it was felt that outsiders who were not known to the young people might inhibit their responses.

The young people said that they did not use the existing skateboarding facility because they did not feel safe, since the ramp was in a dark corner of the park and was often vandalised. They used the car park because it is well lit, has CCTV and also serves as a walkway, and therefore other people are in the vicinity.

The skateboarders recognised that they were seen as a nuisance or even threatening to other people, particularly those over age 65. They felt that this was mainly because older people did not understand what they were doing.

One-day skateboarding event

'Great to see the police involved in something like this.'

'About time the kids had something to do - there's nothing around here.'

'It's really active isn't it. They are really clever with some of the things they do.'

On 10 July 2004, from 10am until 4pm, the car park in Alsager buzzed with over 100 skateboarders showing their moves to surprised shoppers. Comments were sought from the people moving through the car park and from people in the vicinity. The feedback was almost unanimously positive: only one person complained, and that was about the noise from the music.

The one-day event was organised by the original working group and other skateboarders, together with the Community Action Team. Congleton Borough Council helped with staff from their leisure programme and with insurance cover and advice about running a public event for young people. Cheshire County Council Highways Dept made it possible to use the car park space. Dane Housing, the local social housing provider, sponsored the hire of skateboarding ramps and encouraged their staff to help.

Change

Following the skateboarding event, one of the Alsager Town Councillors took up the cause of providing better facilities for young people and skateboarders. The success of the exercise led to Cheshire carrying out further work - see Reducing fear of young people.

What next?

The results of the consultation have been widely shared, and the Community Inspector has been working to identify potential funders for new facilities, as have the CSO and the PC. Congleton Borough Council is also consulting with the Police Architect about future improvements to leisure facilities.