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Black Country Communities in the Lead

Logo for Black Country Communities in the Lead www.blackcountrylead.org 

Partnership information

Description

man on a scooterBackground

Black Country Communities in the Lead (LEAD) is about developing the skills needed for people to live, work, and develop within their geographical or interest community. LEAD has been enabling local people to participate in the decisions that affect them, developing community businesses, social enterprises and taking part in the democratic system. LEAD has been identifying new models of working that will feed into the 30 year strategy developed by the Black Country Consortium, inform the Learning and Skills Council Strategic Area Review, develop the Stakeholder Survey and knowledge economy and feed into e-democracy, leaving a sustainable social capital that will inform governance.

The partnership includes voluntary, public and private organisations which recognise the importance of working with the community such as Walsall Primary Care Trust and the local colleges.

Aims

The primary aim of LEAD is to work with communities to generate ideas and businesses from the bottom upwards in order to develop new and sustainable community and social enterprises. Community animateurs have been playing an important role establishing vital links between the community and the projects within LEAD. The DP also aims to see how different approaches to business support can help facilitate the establishment of enterprises. 

Objectives

  • Develop knowledge-rich communities empowered to take decisions about their own lives and community through building social capital and supporting the setting up of social enterprises
  • Establish a common understanding of how social enterprise can contribute to regeneration of neighbourhoods
  • Support the local labour market through the development of ten social enterprise pilots
  • Improve understanding of how social enterprise can contribute to the integration of communities of interest with local communities and the labour market through the sharing of good practice
  • Encourage empowerment, knowledge and skills within communities
  • Develop new ways of involving communities in local, national and European government issues, and social enterprise networks, particularly through the use of IT
  • Increase awareness of the governance issues which affect their work and lives, and improve access to the networks and services they need to carry out the development of social enterprises or self employment
  • Establish a series of training courses to help members of the target groups develop the skills needed to form and run social enterprises and improve the quality of jobs available locally. 
Target Groups
  • Disadvantaged geographical and interest communities
  • BME groups
  • Asian women
  • People with mental health problems
  • People with disabilities 

Round

2

Round 1 to Round 2

The Learning Kitchen in Round One was designed to develop methods of engaging people in learning through a variety of avenues. This work has been extended in Round Two to encompass a community perspective, examining the development of community businesses and social enterprises as a job creation tool.

Lead partner

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council
www.laws.sandwell.gov.uk/

Core partners

Access to Business, Aegis Associates, Black Country Consortium Ltd, Future Foundations, Halesowen College, Lighthouse Project, TLC College Wolverhampton, Walsall Community Arts Team, Walsall Metropoliton Borough Council, Walsall tPCT

Transnational partnerships

Information for Transnational partnerships

Contact

Anthony Walters, Black Country Consortium Ltd,

End-dates

Action 2: 30 September 2007
Action 3: 31 March 2008

Equal theme

Social economy

Origins

The Black Country Consortium existed for a number of years prior to the Equal initiatives, bringing together public and private sector organisations who wished to work to regenerate the Black Country. Partners within the consortium formed the backbone of the Round One Development Partnership and have extended their work into Round Two, joined by additional partners.

Beneficiaries

BME groups, Jobseekers with low basic skills, Lone parents and people with care responsibilities, People from disadvantaged areas (top 10% most deprived wards), People with disabilities, People with mental health conditions, Unemployed, Women
Total beneficiaries: 350

Achievements

meeting

Benchmarking against best practice:

ASAN has been at involved developing social accounting with the Development Trusts Association. They have secured funding from the Government Office for the West Midlands to establish a social accounting cluster in the region. Working with the Social Audit Network, a development programme has been drawn up involving eight organisations. This cluster work should result in seven new organisations new organisations producing sets of social accounts. Two of these organisations will be development trusts.


meeting

Moving away from grant dependency:

The infusion of Equal funding into the land Apprentice programme has enabled Groundwork to apply the lessons learned from the Redhouse Estate project. A series of proposals have been written and tenders submitted to secure sustained income to the programme. This has led to completion of a successful tender document and agreement with British Waterways enabling the Land Apprentice teams to be a preferred supplier for certain types of Landscape works on the West Midlands canal for the next three years. Furthermore this social enterprise is expanding from 3 teams to 6 to cope with demand from British Waterways. The significance of this is that it is the British Waterways mainstream budget supporting the delivery mechanism and not just grant being passed through the system.


presentation

Raising the bar for corporate social responsibility:

The Vine Trust is linking corporate social responsibility and the third sector social enterprise sector on the ground through a partnership with IKEA where young people, many of them having being excluded from school and/or have a history of offending, are being given vocational work placements assembling furniture. What makes this project innovative is not just the partnership with IKEA, but that IKEA provides the furniture which is damaged or faulty to repair for selling on. This furniture would have normally been sent to landfill or destroyed. The project has been very successful, having initially been rolled out in Birmingham and more recently expanded into Wembley.

Intended impact/ sustainability

LEAD is establishing proven methods of engaging with very hard to reach communities in order to sow the seeds of building community enterprises as a way of funding their own organisational or individual objectives, thus providing an alternative or addition to other sources of funding (e.g. grants, project funds).

Scatter plot

Process
Practice
Product X
Policy X X
City Local Regional National European

Product/Regional

Level One toolkit for developing social enterprise is being trialed within the partnership. Depending on feedback, this toolkit could be used across the region to support community enterprise work.

Policy/Local

At a sub-regional level, two areas have employed community animateurs as a way of engaging with particular local communities to introduce community enterprise as a way of funding the organisation's objectives, and engaging individuals in the labour market, e.g. working with Sikh temples, mosques and other faith organisations.

Policy/National

The apprenticeship model developed by the DP is to be adopted by British Waterways as part of their national recruitment policy.

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Connections

Connections

Activities and products

Activity
Black Country Small Business support This programme has been working across a number of organisations providing business advice and support to BME and other disadvantaged groups.
Activity
Butterfly – Creating chances The aim of the transnational partnership is to promote and develop new business ideas and solutions in the social economy to strengthen the integration chances of disadvantaged target groups in and through work in local communities. Butterfly – Creating chances is a transnational partnershipExpand/collapse Products (1)
Activity
Creative Developments The Creative Development Black Country team has been working with partners to provide participatory arts projects according to partners' needs.
Activity
Family Link Workers Training The aim of this programme is to train local community members to support health and social care professionals and to help community members gain appropriate skills and qualifications to support entry into work.Expand/collapse Products (1)
Activity
Pathways to self employment for people with disabilities This programme has been working with people who have disabilities or health problems and offers an individually led support system around business start up (as a company registered with Companies House or via self employment), developing the idea, identifying start up funding, offering desk space and resources for business start up, or benefit advice on the best way to trade.
Activity
Practical Craft and Design This programme has been engaging with members of hard to reach communities in education and training activities, developing confidence, skills levels and an understanding of the practical benefits of training and personal development.
Activity
The Learning Surgery Exploring Enterprise This programme is based in a converted Doctor's Surgery at West Cross in Smethwick.Expand/collapse Products (1)
Activity
The NET The NET is a project set up to evaluate the impact of faith-based organisations on regeneration and the social economy.Expand/collapse Products (1)
Activity
The Redhouse Project This project undertook community consultation to determine what issues to tackle.
Activity
TLC College Wolverhampton development activities The project has been offering a wide variety of activities for women of all ages, including child development, food hygiene, family activities and a Women's Club.
Print
Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) posterPoster showing how the Personal Digital Assistant can be used within community settings for learning and for communicating ideas about social enterprise.
Print
Recycling and Social EnterpriseA handbook on recycling and social enterprise.
Print
Renewable Energy and Social EnterpriseA handbook on renewable energy and social enterprise.