Today I met with…
Rachel Gibson, Project Manager for our community dialogue project
Sajda Kausar, Community Development Worker
John Topham, Public Health Strategy Manager
Normanton is an old-established area in the southern area of central Derby. I had heard that there were about 50 languages spoken here and the impression is of a wide range of ethnicities and faiths (the Hindu, Sikh, Christian and Moslem places of worship were all within a ¼ mile of each other, the shops advertised items for Asian and eastern European tastes).
Sajda took us around the area but admitted that she knows little about the Roma community, we talked for a while about who did and how we might access that information. It would seem reasonable to assume that many local agencies need intelligence about the culture, attitudes and behaviour of the Roma but we know of no ‘central’ resource in either DH, FCO or Home Office.
The project seems to be firming up as a process that helps develop a general understanding of, and hopefully engagement with, the Roma, uses that to assess needs and then uses all of that information to develop services.
We talked a little about how the PCT might position itself as an ‘information provider’ to other agencies who also need to understand minority ethnic groups (part of the local leadership WCC competency). From that idea we suggested that the PCT might try to organise a community-wide meeting where people might share what understanding they do have of, say, the Roma. We might facilitate that and introduce some external expertise to help calibrate, broaden or focus their local perspective. Again, this feeds into the local leadership idea.
Currently there is no ‘project’ – no team or statement of aims & scope – two people were mentioned, Bob and Kay, and Sajda expressed interest. I think Gill wants to do this and is likely to put the resources behind it (she’s back on Monday) so there is the germ of something and the desire to get started.
Structurally, there seems to be nowhere for this intelligence to reside, the PCT has no research or marketing group, no knowledge management function. Building something that gathers, holds and disseminates this population intelligence, perhaps as part of Gill’s ‘Engagement’ remit, seems to be the more strategic partner of this project.
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