Glasgow, A City of the Future - EcCoWell Stimulus Papers

Four Stimulus Papers presented at the Glasgow: A City of the Future - the EcCoWell Approach for 2020 event:

Stimulus paper 1 – Living and Learning in EcCoWell Cities Peter Kearns PASCAL Observatory

These notes and questions have been prepared to promote discussion of the ideas set out in the clarifying paper Living and Learning in EcCoWell Cities [also presented at the EcCoWell Approach for 2020 event]. This paper has been prepared to provide a possible framework for further exchanges between cities participating in the PASCAL International Exchanges (PIE) that go in the direction of broader more holistic and integrated strategies.

It is hoped that arrangements will be made for cross-sectoral discussion of the ideas in the Clarifying Paper so as to identify areas of common interest, and ways in which these shared interests can be strengthened. Feedback from these discussions to PIE will have considerable value for all the cities participating in PIE, and will enable an expanded draft of the Clarifying Paper to be prepared to include practical ways of working towards holistic strategies that advance learning, community, health, and well-being, environment and cultural objectives in participating cities in cost –effective ways that add value.

It would be particularly useful if the following questions could be discussed by mixed groups that bring together people with experience across education/learning, health, environment, community building, and cultural sectors.

A. The Convergence and Common Interest Themes (pp4-12)

The central thesis of the Clarifying Paper is that Learning City, Healthy City, and Green City initiatives share certain common interests so that these aspirations will be progressed best in cities if holistic integrated strategies are adopted that recognise, and build on, the areas of common interest.

For example, Learning City initiatives commonly aim to provide learning opportunities for all sections of the community, and so further equity, social justice, and community objectives. An empowered and enlightened citizenry will have an enhanced understanding of environment issues, while the equity strategies of Learning Cities will facilitate progress in addressing the social determinants of health.

Question 1 :  What links and connections may be identified between learning, community, health and well-being, and environment objectives in your city? To what extent have these connections been forged in policies? What more could be done?

Question 2 :  What are the main barriers to more holistic and integrated strategies? How could these be addressed?

 

B. Advancing Well-being in the City (pp10-11)

The paper asserts that learning, health, community building, and cultural policies can each contribute to the well-being of citizens and their families. This impact can be enhanced if policies and strategies are co-ordinated.  Central aspects include:

• Learning encourages social interaction and increases self-esteem and feelings of competency.
• Benefits from learning in one domain such as health and environment impact on functioning in domains such as family and community.
• As better measures of well-being are becoming available, the policy significance of well-being has increased.
• There has been a growing concern in some countries at mental health problems and increased alienation of sections of the population, including many young people.

Question 3:  To what extent are sectoral policies that enhance well-being co-ordinated in a strategic approach to promoting well-being in your city? What more could be done?

Question 4 :  In what ways are mental health problems and growing social alienation of some groups being addressed? What more could be done?

C. Enhancing Place-making (pp12-13)

The Clarifying Paper suggests that the concept of place-making can provide an important framework for bringing stakeholders into partnership arrangements to advance a shared vision. The active involvement of the community is central to this concept. The community role of civic spaces is a key aspect of creative place-making.

Question 5 :  In what ways could place-making in your city be enhanced as a democratic process contributing to empowering the community, strengthening citizenship and a sense of identity in the city, and contributing to the aspirations and ideals discussed in this paper?

D. Community and Cultural Policies (pp8-9

Heritage and cultural policies can be important in building community, a sense of identity and belonging, and adding to social cohesion in cities – as well as enhancing the quality of life and well-being of residents. These dimensions of good cities are especially important in cities that have experienced rapid growth, large-scale migration, and considerable poverty and inequality.

Question 6 : What role do community and cultural policies play in the development of your city? In what ways could their impact be enhanced?

E. Preserving the Environment (pp7-8)

Many cities have adopted policies to preserve and enhance the environment, and a number of leading Green Cities have emerged. The success of Green City strategies depends on community understanding and support for the policies adopted so that there are important educational and learning dimensions. Innovative eco-community projects provide examples of community-led initiatives. Community understanding of complex issues such as global warming presents challenges where education and learning strategies can make a contribution.

Question 7 : In what ways do Green City objectives connect with Learning City and  Healthy City aspirations and strategies. How could these connections be strengthened?

F. Towards Sustainable Development in EcCoWell Cities (pp15-17)

The Clarifying Paper asserts that ways need to be found to progress beyond silo development in cities so that holistic and integrated across sectors leads to a shared vision, community support, and value added outcomes in building  humane sustainable cities.

This will require arrangements that transfer ideas from one circuit to another and which recognise the layers upon layers of urban interconnections. The growing diversity in many cities is a particular issue to be addressed.

Question 8:  What steps could be taken in your city to strengthen sectoral understanding, co-operation, and policy integration?

Question 9 :  In what ways could all sectors collaborate and contribute in addressing the question of growing diversity in many cities, and in progressing towards a shared identity with social inclusion in a sustainable city?

Question 10 : Overall, what do you regard as the single most important initiative that needs to be taken in building humane, inclusive, and sustainable cities?

The full discussion paper is available at http://pie.pascalobservatory.org/pascalnow/blogentry/eccowell/living-and-learning-eccowell-cities

Stimulus paper 2 – Glasgow as a City of Activism and Change – Lynette Jordan, School of Education UoG

For a long time Glasgow has had a dual reputation. The rise of trade in the 16^th and 17^th century put Glasgow on the map. As the second city of the Empire in the 18^th century Glasgow it is also highly associated with advances in the trade of sugar, tobacco and cotton and being a vibrant trading port in colonial times. In 18^th century industrial times it is seen as a radical and innovative force in shipbuilding and engineering. In the 20^th century it managed the successful re-housing of a post-war city and the rapid improvement of public health. It has notoriety as a local government with socialist leanings and little or no Tories in power. It is also seen as a centre for cultural creativity and diversity with its many festivals, celebrations and facilities. Yet it has been associated with poor health, high unemployment, and sub-standard housing since the 1980s.  On more than one occasion the city has hit the headlines in relation to mortality rates, violence, and sectarianism. However, today Glasgow City Council and businesses and services are keen to project a positive image of Glasgow. From the 1980s, despite drastic economic changes it pulled itself out of the doldrums and began to re-invent itself and move toward the image of positive cultural development and identity. In 1983 the city fathers initiated this change through the Glasgow's Miles Better Campaign and between 1983 and 1987 Glasgow won the International Film and Television of New York Award no fewer than four times. The famous Burrell collection opened to the public in 1983 and the huge conference and exhibition centre SECC in 1985. In 1988 we invited people to come and visit the Glasgow Garden Festival and in 1990 the ground-breaking event which changed Glasgow forever in terms of cultural reputation, came in the form of the European City of Culture. So Glasgow as a city has had an exciting and interesting past even though it has had its economic challenges and controversies. 

As far as community development work is concerned there have been ups and downs too. Party political activity and trade union activism had thrived since the late 19^th century and Glasgow seemed to continually lean to the left. In the 1970s and 80s, just as in inter-war years Glasgow was a highly politically active city and community work practitioners were employed in local government the Strathclyde Regional Council who were determined that the poorest in our communities would not be left behind, forgotten about or ignored. There were campaigns about high unemployment, poor housing, changes in welfare benefit, damp housing, the Poll tax imposition in Scotland, poverty and many more issues which stimulated protests and counter hegemonic responses from communities in Glasgow, from the inner city to the huge housing schemes positioned in the outskirts.

More recently the people of Glasgow have been concerned about further local and central government cuts, sectarianism and cultural diversity. The Scottish government has put a great deal of money into discovering what lies behind the persistence of Scottish sectarian divisions through religion. In terms of cultural diversity and the influx of new citizens to Glasgow in the late 1990s, the existing population responded positively to the changes and increasing diversity. After an initial but short negative reaction about the dispersal of asylum seekers and refugees to the Glasgow housing system, a flurry of positive activity dispelled any negative reaction to the newcomers and any minor racist reactions within the communities were quashed.

In 2011 Glasgow demonstrated the generosity of its people when Amal Azzudin, originally from Somalia, graduated at the University of Glasgow with a Bachelor of Arts in Community Development after 3 years work-based study. But Amal is no ordinary student.  Amal is one of the original ‘Glasgow Girls’ who campaigned from 2005 against dawn raids and the detention of child asylum seekers. A school friend Agnesa Murselaj was arrested for deportation in a dawn raid and her family who were Roma Gypsies from Kosovo were forcibly removed from her home after the UK Home Office ruled in 2005 that it was safe for asylum seekers to return to Kosovo. Agnesa’s family, who are Kosovan Roma, knew this was not the case and a campaign gathered force at Drumchapel High School as more children from the school were targeted for deportation. The seven Glasgow Girls came from all over the world (including Somalia, Kurdistan, Poland as well as Scotland) so they joined forces to mount a campaign to bring back their friend.  Amal along with, Roza Salih, Ewelina Siwak, Emma Clifford, Toni Lee Henderson and Jennifer McCarron took on the Scottish Parliament and hounded politicians, challenged authorities, and set up dawn watches. By the end of their campaign, they’d been the subject of two documentaries, won political awards including Best Public Campaign at the Politician of the Year 2005, challenged First Minister Jack McConnell in public and taken their cause from the classroom to the nation. And eventually they got their pal back. This type of activity demonstrates the spirit of Glasgow and the sense of interconnectedness that this once colonial power has towards its new citizens.

Another example of the activism of the city which mainly goes unrecognised and unappreciated is through the numbers of people active in their own communities, quietly working towards solving the issues and problems which those in the most disadvantaged areas face. The University of Glasgow reaches out to some of these activists throughout Glasgow and surrounding areas through the community based Activate course which supports and encourages local activists to think about local issues at a deeper level and hone their skills in activism and volunteering. More than 400 activists have been presented with the Activate award since its inception in the early 1990s.  This is an example of university engagement with communities and citizens in less fortunate communities. It is also an example which sees Glasgow as a ‘learning city’ in a very different way. The city fathers proudly claim Glasgow to be a ‘learning city’ with its several universities and FE colleges but this type of learning support for activists as well as students needs to be replicated throughout the city enough to make a real difference to Glasgow people’s lives. We need more resources to spread this work further and make an impact on the level of activism. The spirit of radicalism and the reputation for activism could be revived again if people were reminded of their history and the successes of the past. Glasgow people along with the politicians must lead and influence the changes. This is the real goal of the Community development team at Glasgow and we look forward to seeing some further inspiring and encouraging activism in the near future within the city walls of Glasgow.

Stimulus Paper 3 - Working with Drugs and Alcohol: The Circle of Care Approach – Joy Barlow, STRADA University of Glasgow

STRADA are currently developing a Circle of Care approach with a range of statutory and voluntary drug and alcohol organisations across Scotland.   Circle based approaches have a strong evidence base in a range of health and social settings including learning disabilities, sex offending and homelessness. Currently there is little evidence to suggest that circle based approaches work in the field of substance misuse.  STRADA are therefore coordinating a ‘Proof of Concept’ phase to test the applicability of circle based approaches within this area.

Melting the Iceberg of Scotland’s drug and alcohol problem: Report of the Independent Enquiry (2010) identified the need to develop a whole-population approach as a response to help tackle Scotland’s drug and alcohol problem and to develop a Circle of Care concept. The concept aims to empower the focus person (service user) by allowing them to explore their needs and identify the support they require from services to help them in their recovery. The focus person also identifies their recovery capital to become part of their Circle of Care. Recovery capital is another term for personal/social assets and can include family, partners, friends, peers, volunteers, community resources. A facilitator, typically a professional, works alongside the focus person supporting them with the process. This style of working requires a shift in power between the professional and service user – where the professional guides and facilitates choices and decision making allowing the focus person to lead.

Circle of Care is not an intervention but a different approach to working with people who are affected by substance misuse.  As practitioners, we have identified that the support network of individuals who are in recovery consist largely of professionals and services.  However, it is just as crucial that other members such as family, friends, and peers become part of that network to support the individual re-integrate into the wider community.

It is clear from progress so far, illustrated at the Learning and Development Network which has been set up for Circle of Care Participants, that there is real development of recovery capital for some individuals, i.e. ‘focus person’. Early learning has suggested that people who are in recovery are able and willing to self direct. However this style of approach demands a very different type of service user participation. It demands a level of participation that is focussed on citizen capital (Arnstein cited by Daddow & Browne: 2010:16). In practice this means more commitment and participation from the service user.

The design of the Circle of Care is different from other approaches with regard to recovery for individuals affected by problem drug and alcohol use, in three respects:

• It has been designed to be an organic, grassroots developmental and test programme, rather than a top down command initiative, as many failed projects have been before
• Great care has been taken to ensure planning of the practice and experiential elements prior to the proof of concept phase and a programme of reflective recordings from practitioners which will further refine the core elements of delivery
• It is being led by, and nurtured with Scotland’s key education and training programme for the substance misuse field (STRADA), and the concept if proven will be scaled up through  the  medium  of  workforce  development,  rather  than  mandatory  based implementation.

The most important indicator for the Proof of Concept phase and for the learning and development is the impact that Circle of Care is having on individuals who are in recovery. A significant number of these have been recorded at Learning and Development Network events. Suffice it to say here, that these areas would be teased out in a workshop session on December 5th. In addition to a description of Circle of Care and its evaluation, discussion could take place
between a facilitator and a focus person to illustrate the strengths and challenges of the approach.

Social supports are very important. It’s only social supports that help to keep me clean and sober.....in and amongst some people like myself, who are also staying clean and sober......I am at the early stage where I am continuing and building my own social relationships.....Having these supports has been huge in keeping my flat and my sobriety. I now say that life can be hard but I have the know how to deal with it, and part of that is having good people around me.

(Focus person written testimony)

Stimulus Paper 4 – Lifelong Learning in Palestine – Keith  Hammond,  Open  programme, University of Glasgow

Lifelong  Learning  in  Palestine  has  been  running  almost  in  parallel  with  the  Arab  Spring. Uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and of course in Syria have been constantly in the news. Surprisingly, there have been no similar events on the West Bank and in Gaza.  But the whole process of democratization has shaped the background of everything we have done on the LLIP project, which does not sound so different to the ‘whole population’ approach described in Joy’s paper.

Indeed the notion of ‘recovery capital’ also sounds close to notions of human and social capital, which have been reoccurring themes of our project.

Much of this approach goes back to the Arab Human Development Reports of 2002, 2003, 2005 and a couple since that take us up to the present.  These reports have been really influential internationally and I think they have countered some of neocons approach coming out of the Washington Consensus.  Millions of copies have been downloaded from the UNDP website. The reports focus on three ‘deficits’ that plague the Arab world – Palestine included:

• A lack of freedom;
• Insufficient rights for women;
• Inadequate educational systems.

So a freedom deficit is the fundamental message of these reports.  They say if freedom is not respected then you can forget about development.  This approach was then picked up on by Bush Jr’s at the G-8 gathering in November 2004. What emerged was that the promotion of freedom, human rights and sound education had to be linked to improved economic growth in the Middle East and the creation of civil societies, steering people away from extreme politics. This  strategy also  met with  European  approval.    The  shift  might  have  been  down  to  the backlash on the Iraq War.  That war was supposed to have been about reshaping the Middle East for the better !  Fortunately since then a few European schemes have promoted the kind of approach Joy engages.   Joy writes of ‘citizen capital’ which fits with what has been going on in community projects in Cairo and elsewhere.   The Arab Reports note three characteristics to be prevalent in countries like Egypt and Palestine:

• A demographic youth bulge;
• The social and political repercussions of economic restructuring;
• The growing power of Islamist groups.

All three are important for on the ground projects like Lifelong Learning in Palestine.  Young people (38% of the population are under 15 years of age) are demanding new training and new jobs.  Just like Joys focus on ‘the person’, the emergent youth politics are all about people being involved in change that systematically creates all these new opportunities.  As the first move, many countries like Egypt have opened themselves up to new markets. But under Mubarak this was a disaster.  Yet between the Suez Canal and the outskirts of Cairo, you see one Language School after another, one IT Center after another and all sorts of Business Training Initiatives. At the same time all sorts of public sector subsidies are being removed. Even food subsidies are being removed.  All this has had an impact on both the organization of civil society and participatory politics.  More people now go to centers organized by the Peace and Justice Party (Islamic Brotherhood) for their basic needs in the absence of old centers that might have once been provided by the state.  The only approach that is being considered to curb some of the more barbarian aspects of all this is real freedom and respect for human rights. The Arab states are now looking at Lifelong Learning policies that promote both and at the same time see economic development in terms of human development.   The change is not seen as unproblematic for many of the old structures.  It is a far more humanistic approach to the problems that we see all over the Middle East and again the idea of networks and social capital are central to the discourse.
What we have seen emerging on the LLIP project is an early move towards something very similar to Joy’s Circle of Care in that Lifelong Learning is shaped around:

1. Respect for existent grassroots projects, where human agency is not overshadowed by a top down approach to Lifelong Learning…
2. Agency has to be in there and respected at every stage in the planning and delivery processes so that good practice builds on indigenous strengths…
3. So all the real change comes from people taking control of their lives as in real systems of Lifelong Learning.

Our task has simply been introducing Palestinian partners to an international conversation where the above could be bounced around in different modes of knowledge exchange and disseminated way beyond the Middle East.  But it has all been based on this fundamental respect for Palestinians who have gone through horrendous experiences and tumultuous change.  We can maybe talk about the impact of our project that has brought all sorts of things to light that give the ground for further developments.  We have seen things move.  But the people who are best able to do talk about all this of course are the Palestinians.  We have just been facilitators.   This is how I would approach the LLIP contribution to the December event.  I think it would sit nicely alongside the kind of things Joy has raised as well as the things someone like John Field would talk about in relation to social capital.