Venue: Committee Room 3A, Guildhall, Swansea. View directions
Contact: Michelle Roberts, Scrutiny Officer
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Disclosure of Personal and Prejudicial Interests. Minutes: None |
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Notes and Conveners Letter PDF 248 KB Notes and Conveners letter from previous meeting on 14 November 2017 Additional documents: Minutes: The previous notes and Conveners letter were noted. |
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Community Cohesion in Swansea - Q&A Session PDF 129 KB Q&A Session with · Declan Cahill, South Wales Police · Paul Thomas, Resilience · Jane Whitmore, Poverty and Prevention Swansea · Riaz Hassan, Regional Community Cohesion Coordinator (Swansea, N&PT, Bridgend) Additional documents: Minutes: The Working Group invited Jane Whitmore from Poverty and Prevention, Declan Cahill from South Wales Police and Riaz Hassan the Western Bay Regional Community Cohesion Co-ordinator. They gave a presentation and discussed the issues with Councillors. The following issues were discussed: · Role of the Western Bay Regional Community Cohesion Co-ordinator. Welsh Government fund 8 Co-ordinators across Wales to take forward mainstreaming community cohesion work across the region. The role to drive partnership working and implement delivery of national objectives at the local level. The Co-ordinator role is strategic rather than operational. This is the only funding that is available for community cohesion work. · No resources specifically for community cohesion. So it is about mainstreaming cohesion in everything we do, embedding it in to our activities. · Enabling of different group of people to get on well together and developing response in differences in our society. Examples of projects delivering on this: ― Our Abertawe – Celebrating Swansea Together ― Local employability programmes ― Disability Liaison Group ― Swansea LGBT Forum ― Regional BAME Forum ― Student and resident initiatives ― EID in the Park · The can be a misconception in communities. Learning from and sharing different cultural practice helps with cohesion. There is a need to develop more and promote positive images and tackle misconceptions. Panel though Myth Busting leaflets and excellent idea that should be shared and used more widely, available both in hard copy but also online. It can then be shared by Councillors through their social media like Twitter or Facebook. · Messages are being relayed in communities need to be current and not based upon old media. · What is and can be done with children and young people around perceptions: ― Deliver sessions in schools, take children to mosque ― Good religious education delivered working with local groups ― Deliver this part of the curriculum positively using myth busting techniques ·
Enabling
of different groups of people to get on well together and developing respect in
the difference in our society. Practical examples of projects delivering on
the statement about: ―
Intercultural Cities Network ―
Hate Crime awareness week online training ―
Anti-Slavery/Human Trafficking awareness ―
Mosque Open Day ―
School Initiatives like show racism the red card ―
Syrian Resettlement Programme, Refugees and
Asylum Seeker support. Feedback on
settling of Syrian families really positive. ·
Barriers
to improving community cohesion and how we are addressing them and the
outcomes. ―
Welsh Language Promotion ―
Loss of Communities First Programme ―
Promotion and awareness raising…WG agreed that
need to do more of this ―
Swansea City of Sanctuary ―
Corporate training via e-learning programmes ―
Swansea Pride ―
Mistrust of Police and the Establishment. Local community cohesion police team newly
established, with new ways of working and focusing clearly on cohesion matters ―
Negative and misleading media stories. Swansea and its partners need to use the
media and their own communication mechanisms like social media to raise
awareness, for myth busting and to highlight positive stories. Could invite
local media to events and see if they
will publish stories busting myths ·
Monitoring
of success and evidence on progress and outcomes ―
Equality Impact Assessments ―
Annual Review of Strategic Equality Plan ―
Monitoring of learning and employment outcomes ―
Disability Liaison Group ―
Evaluation of staff training ―
Monitoring of Hate Crime incidents ·
Partnership
working in practice and examples and areas for improvement ―
Professional partners tend to work well
together. There needs to be improvement
in third sector organisations working together when they have the same aim or
objectives/outcomes ―
English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) ―
More initiatives need to try to be inclusive of
a cross section of the community rather than just BAME/asylum seeker and
refugee for example as this will continue to segregate ―
It is about all organisations working together
with the aim of breaking down barriers and improving community cohesion. ―
Swansea Pride a hugely positive and enjoyable
event. ·
National
Objectives and local examples in Swansea ―
Community Safety themed radio campaigns. Monthly short community safety messages,
currently with Heart Radio. ―
Hate Crime/Anti-slavery/LGBT awareness weeks ―
Gypsy Roma Traveller and Human Trafficking
awareness events and training ―
Workshop Raising Awareness on PREVENT ·
Engagement
with Ward Councillors and what does current support and involvement look like ― Local employability programmes involvement ― Employability Ward Member Briefings (Community First wards) ― PACT meetings ― Cabinet Member 1-1 briefings ― Small Steps training would be useful for councillors (Jane Whitmore will enquire whether we can get WG to come back and do more sessions in Swansea ― Working Group agreed that more could be done with Councillors including: How can delivery of community cohesion be improved through more involvement of local ward councillors § Councillors can be champions for community cohesion in their communities § Need practical ways of being able to do this for example access to and use of Myth Buster information § They could help communicate messages into and out of communities § Access to information/development session on for example Anti-Slavery. Could some sessions be face to face as well as those online? · Key achievements in mainstreaming community cohesion, examples that are directly benefiting local residents/communities ― Joint Local Authority and South Wales Police on Sex Workers ― Street Vulnerability Multi-agency Risk Assessment Conference. Police lead on this. Police gather information on those who are vulnerable and causing issues in city centres. Then those identified discussed at conference to find solutions to their vulnerabilities and hopefully reducing those issues in city centres. Arresting not always best way forward for those people, need to be SMARTER in what we do. Better to address the underlying issues of individuals involved where possible. ― Students and residents joint initiative in Brynmill ― Increased awareness of Anti-slavery and Human Trafficking ― Syrian Resettlement Programme has employment strand that sits in Workways |
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Next Steps Working Group will discuss and make conclusions/recommendations that will be put in a letter to the Cabinet Member for Stronger Communities. Minutes: A letter to the Cabinet Members for Better Communities will be sent reflected the views and recommendations of the Working Group. |
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