Community Engagement Working Party – 26 JulyJulian McLaughlin, Ian Roe, Julie

Bagwell, Eddie Burridge

Overview

• How Safer Neighbourhood community engagement has evolved

• The current situation• Different groups and their needs• Residents’ perceptions• Outcomes• Working with partners and the community

Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs)

Original ethos: the Safer Neighbourhood project is a commitment by community service providers to improve the quality of life in our communities. It will be achieved by working together to target the issues identified by local people as those that matter most. 

Safer Neighbourhoods is about providing our communities with:

• ACCESS• INFLUENCE• INTERVENTIONS• ANSWERS

In the beginning, 2007 - 2010All SNTs were required to use all of the following community engagement types:

1. Public meetings

2. Surgeries

3. Environmental Visual Audit (EVA)

4. Face-to-face surveys

5. Consultation postcards

6. Street Corner Meetings

The frequency of these engagements was determined by the priority level of the ward. Public meetings were held every month for priority 1 areas and every 2 or 3 months in other areas.

Sample engagement plan for a priority 1 ward

• In addition, every SNT had to develop a ward profile, in order to better understand the specific needs of their communities.

• This meant they could adapt engagements to suit their community.

• For example, some SNTs replaced the more formal Street Corner Meetings and Surgeries with ‘Cops at the Shops’ and ‘Cops at the College’ where appropriate. Cops at the

shops

Safer Neighbourhoods Review 2010

In Autumn 2010, the Safer Poole Partnership reviewed the existing SNT structure and looked at how it could be improved. They interviewed panel chairs and sergeants from every SNT and found:• Attendance at public meetings was extremely low;• Street corner meetings, surgeries and ‘cops at the

shops’ were working well in most areas and SNTs were adapting them to suit their area;

• People would only engage with SNTs when there was an issue.

SNT Best Practice Day – July 2011

• This was attended by representatives from every SNT.

• It was agreed that SNTs could abandon public meetings if they didn’t work in their area.

• As a result, most SNTs have replaced public meetings with more suitable engagements and many have seen an increase in public participation.

Dorset Police SNT review – early 2012

• Police representatives on SNTs are now primarily focusing on victims and offenders, with less emphasis on community engagement.

• Police teams were told to attend at least one engagement per month so less successful engagement types have been dropped.

• More focus on partnership working, with more non-police members of SNTs attending events/engagements on behalf of whole SNT.

• Greater use of face-to-face surveys.

Eddie Burridge, Julie Bagwell and Ian Roe

The current situation

• Public meetings are still held in Rossmore and Alderney and Hamworthy (although the frequency has reduced to four per year) as attendance is still relatively high in these areas.

• Poole Town and Oakdale holds an SNT event in the Dolphin Centre.

• Newtown and Branksome have replaced their public meetings with Street Corner Meetings.

• Canford Heath, Creekmoor, Broadstone, Merley and Bearwood have all replaced their public meetings with bi-monthly surgeries and have information boards to feed back what they have done.

• Parkstone, Penn Hill and Canford Cliffs hold coffee mornings every three months. The attendance has increased considerably since they have changed but it is still predominantly elderly people who attend.

Some examples of engagements that have been adapted to meet the

community’s needs

• Football Focus and coaching for young people• Visits to sheltered housing• Surgeries at Kerry Foods with a Polish translator• Cops at the College• Joint surgeries and home visits with Dorset Blind

Association• Coffee mornings• Surgeries at Sign It! Centre for deaf and hard of

hearing.

Football Focus At an event run by Dorset Blind Association

Attending a community event A crime prevention event

Outcomes

• Better relationship between the SNT and the community – a recent drugs operation in Rossmore, Alderney, Newtown and Branksome was only possible thanks to information from residents.

• Reductions in anti-social behaviour and crime across Poole.

• Improved public perception (shown by Shaping Poole results)

Shaping Poole survey 2011

Working with partners and the community

• Neighbourhood Watch – representatives included on the panel in some areas. In Broadstone, Merley and Bearwood, NW include SNT updates in their newsletters and have even funded SNT projects.

• Bourne Valley Action Group (BVAG) works closely with the Rossmore and Alderney SNT and have taken part in joint patrols of the area.