UKHA 2009: Creating integrated and safer places to live
Winner : Liverpool Housing Trust - Learning lessons from the past: a JIGSAW youth squad project
Forget the X Factor. This project has ‘the wow factor’, according to our judges; and that’s quite a compliment in what was a very closely fought
category.
When the 10,000-home Merseyside housing association launched its JIGSAW youth squad project in 2005, many of its young people saw no future for themselves. Based in one of the nation’s most deprived wards, the scheme aims to teach young people to resist the area’s gang culture, become socially responsible and support the wider community.
‘Learning lessons from the past’ began in 2008, under the JIGSAW umbrella, as a way of bringing some of those lessons to life. LHT’s youngsters have learnt about the importance of social responsibility by studying atrocities in Rwanda, Gaza and Auschwitz. Culminating in a three -day visit by 15 youngsters to the former Nazi concentration camp, ‘learning lessons’ has proved one of the project’s most ambitious and successful educational initiatives.
It has transformed many young lives plagued by unhappiness, lack of things to do, high crime and racial and gang rivalries. ‘Learning lessons’ has helped them overcome long-standing conflicts and start to work together with young people from different cultures, areas and backgrounds.
Participants say they have learnt teamwork, respect and responsibility and that one person’s actions can have a lasting effect on an entire community.
Award sponsored by Hays
Finalists
Circle 33 - Holly Street Partnership
Physical regeneration of the 500-home Holly Street estate in east London during the 1990s failed to address underlying social problems. Circle 33 (part of Circle Anglia) leads the Holly Street Partnership on behalf of five other landlords. Boasting a youth project, neighbourhood office and a project tackling worklessness, crime dropped 26 per cent in its first two years of operation.
FOLD Housing Association - Grouped Traveller housing schemes
When Fold began this project in 2002, 70 per cent of Travellers in Northern Ireland were living in unauthorised places, with the remainder on increasingly outdated Travellers’ sites.
Fold has built two sites offering permanent supported accommodation. One five-home scheme has a transit yard for family visits. The other has eight homes and a paddock and stables.
Great Places Housing Group - Devon Street and Norfolk Street
These two red-brick, 19th century streets in Oldham had little to offer 21st century families. Since Great Places overhauled them, residents can enjoy a stunning and safe street environment.
The area’s diverse mix of residents was brought together to help mould the revitalisation of their streets. This shared experience and pride in its results have forged a new sense of community.
Northern Ireland Housing Executive - SNAP project
This project involved giving disposable cameras to young people living on deprived estates in North Down. They snapped the things they liked and disliked about their neighbourhoods. It was a fun way of consulting young people - many of whom had never been asked what they thought before. Positive perceptions of young people have increased, and crime has dropped.
Your Homes Newcastle - Challenge and Support
This north-east arm’s-length management organisation is using early interventions to help repeat offenders and vulnerable youngsters in the Benwell area of Newcastle avoid trouble.
YHN’s multi-agency approach has seen 95 per cent of perpetrators avoid legal action through changed behaviour. It has also led to a 51 per cent drop in complaints of anti-social behaviour in the area and an increase in sustained tenancies.
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