Influence and having a positive impact on the local community

It’s very easy to get bogged down in day-to-day service delivery, and lose sight of the place of your service in the wider community. The most effective agencies recognise their place in their locale and understand that positive local opinion can only enhance their reputation. Stronger reputations in turn can help to consolidate influence with local decision makers – it’s about making a positive contribution, and telling people about it. If you don’t use your facilities 24 hours a day, have you considered whether you could rent space out to local services or colleges as an additional income stream and as a way of getting your service known?

What does success look like?

Chelmsford Women’s Aid recently opened a Women’s Resource Centre in Chelmsford town centre, supported by the local authorities (district and county), Chelmer Housing Partnership (the LSVT RSL) and a range of other funding sources. This centre takes women out of the refuge and brings in women from the wider community to provide advice, support, and counselling – there are two group sessions, one focussing on domestic violence and one on general peer support. The centre also offers training (in IT, health and beauty and a range of qualifications, delivered by the local college) and a range of fun sessions such as cooking and alternative therapies. The support the centre received was due to the fantastic reputation the refuge had locally, and in terms of the influence that the refuge manager had built up with local contacts over the last 10 years. She also makes a point of ensuring that the refuge is included in the local press on a regular basis, either through raising awareness of domestic violence in the town or through “good news” stories. The press coverage surrounding her campaign for shoppers to donate Christmas presents to children living in the refuge was particularly effective and due in no small part to her excellent relationship with the local paper.

What factors inhibit agencies from having influence and a positive impact on the local community?

• Not having a starting point. Many agencies who have not been involved in their local community before may feel that local residents are hostile to the service and to clients, and be wary of getting involved
• Lack of resources to offer the local community anything
• Lack of time to build up relationships
• Current negative political perception of services/service users
• Current negative media attention towards services/service users
• Existing negative perception creating stigma and discrimination through lack of understanding and awareness
• A belief that local communities have no right to have a view about how a homelessness project operates

What agencies can do:

• Run a well-planned ‘open house’ session, and invite local politicians, officers from statutory agencies and the local press. It’s almost certain they don’t know about the work you do, and would value it if they understood it
• Look at using your facilities for wider community use, for example running adult learning classes in the evening for day centres
• Getting clients to fundraise for local charities
• Ask service users for ideas about ways in which they could contribute something to their local area, and to use their skills. Could clients develop new skills, too?
• Prioritise spending time on getting involved in relevant and powerful local forums – especially if they are complaining about your service
• Consider running services to the wider community alongside homeless clients
• Create opportunities with other local agencies in partnership – for example, getting hostels together with day centres to offer services?
• Volunteers and clients visiting community projects in a speaker role to inform and tackle misconceptions about homelessness e.g. speakers network going into schools etc.

What Homeless Link can offer:

• Visits to successful agencies in your area
• Good practice examples on the website
• Contacts with other agencies in the sector who have managed to weather negative public/media perceptions

Potential future Homeless Link projects:

• Best practice briefing on developing a media strategy

• Training on external communications

• Training on strategic partnership working

• Training on developing joint service delivery models

• Spotlight events on innovative working practices in

  • Day centres
  • Hostels
  • Local authority housing and homelessness departments
  • Registered social landlords

• Campaign materials that inform the public of the reality of homelessness vs the myth that could be targeted in areas where there are a lot of rough sleepers, hostels etc, disseminated via local community groups

What partner organisations could offer:

• The Media Trust and CSV media help voluntary and not-for-profit organisations with their communications by encouraging media professionals to volunteer their time and skills. They work across the UK on PR and press, marketing, design, online media and video and can provide support on stigma-busting campaigns.

Previous Next