What is a People Zone?

I am often asked about the "People Zones" that my office supports, so I thought I'd post up here the report that came to me a few weeks ago. 

 

 

 

POLICE AND CRIME COMMISSIONER FOR LEICESTERSHIRE

 

 

POLICE AND CRIME PANEL

 

Report of

OFFICE OF POLICE AND CRIME COMMISSIONER

 

Subject

People Zones

 

Date

26/06/2023

Author

 

Chief Inspector Nicola Streets, Strategic lead for People Zones

 

 

Purpose of Report

 

  1. The purpose of this report is to provide an update on People Zones to the Police & Crime Panel on activity and progress since the last report on 14/12/2022.

 

Recommendation

 

  1. It is recommended that members comment on the contents of the report. 

 

Background

 

  1. People Zones is an initiative led by the project team in the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC). People Zones have been in place since 2018 under a previous Police & Crime Commissioner (PCC). There are currently 3 People Zones; Bell Foundry (Charnwood), New Parks (City), Thringstone & Whitwick (North West Leicestershire).

 

  1. Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) adopts a strength-based approach, and harnesses the assets, skills and networks within a community instead of focussing on what’s wrong there. ABCD empowers communities to believe that they are the building blocks to positive change. Communities need investment to build relevant knowledge, skills and capacity.

 

  1. In March 2022 the project team, supported by the PCC, redefined People Zones to focus on an Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) approach.

 

 

Mapping for Change

 

  1. Mapping for Change (MfC) completed their research in the three People Zones in March   2023.  It was important to the Police & Crime Commissioner, and the People Zone team, to ensure that we listened to the community rather than make assumptions based on data.  MfC engaged with communities through a variety of methods. A full report of each People Zone, containing a summary and analysis of findings throughout the consultation, are publicly accessible for all to view.

            https://www.peoplezones.co.uk/people-zones

 

  1. We now have unlimited access to an online interactive Asset Map, again available to all and allows anyone to add contributions of assets to the map, such as Mental health services, food banks, youth services etc.

 

  1. 11 OPCC staff have now been trained in the ABCD approach to allow us to establish new People Zones ensuring the project has long term sustainability.

 

 

People Zones Activities

 

  1. Steering group: Comprised of residents and organisations that live, work and serve the area, each People Zone has a formal steering[RM(1]  group. Monthly meetings are minuted and actions are recorded within rolling action logs.

 

    1. Bell Foundry: The Chair of this steering group is an active resident, treasurer of a gardening association within the Bell Foundry estate, sits on a Housing Advisory Group for Charnwood Borough Council (CBC) and is a volunteer coordinator at a local community hub

 

      1. The main outputs of the steering group are driven by key themes from the Bell Foundry People Zone Research Report:
        1. Health and Wellbeing
        2. Community Safety
        3. Pride of Place
        4. Celebrating the People

 

      1. Following a project to increase diversity within the group, active members of the Islamic community have recently come on board to join community leaders, strategic partners in the Police, Fire and Council, as well as other partners that play an active role in the health and wellbeing of local residents.

 

      1. Community leaders from organisations who were recently allocated People Zone Grant Funds have also been invited to join the group.

 

      1. The focus of this group’[RM(2] is “actions, not words”, with a drive towards community engagement to continue in raising awareness of People Zones, increasing community resilience and to recruit motivated individuals to further drive the outcomes of the research report towards sustainability.

 

    1. Thringstone & Whitwick: The Chair of this steering group is a community leader at one of the People Zone’s community hubs.

 

      1. The main outputs of the steering group are driven by the key themes from the Thringstone & Whitwick Research Report:
        1. Youth Provision
        2. Community Safety
        3. Access to Services
        4. Pride of Place

 

      1. Following a project to increase representation from Whitwick, which involved presenting the research findings at a Parish Council meeting to develop the relationship and to answer any questions of the Councillors and public in attendance, the group now has a strong mix of active residents, many of whom are community leaders. Other key members include strategic partners in the Police, Fire and Council, as well as other partners that play an active role in the health and wellbeing of local residents.

 

      1. Community leaders who were recently awarded People Zone Grant Funds were already involved with the steering group, and have been a great support to the project.

 

      1. Community leaders who recently completed the Community Leadership Programme (CLP) have been involved with the steering group from its inception

 

      1. The group are motivated towards projects that will have a lasting legacy for both Thringstone and Whitwick, with the aim of creating a safer, more cohesive community.

 

    1. New Parks: The Chair of the Steering Group is both a long-term resident and Community Champion for the People Zone. The Chair is a widely known figure across the community, manages the local Community Hub, is responsible for a mass amount of provision for the community, (suitable from new-born age to the elderly) and was requested to sit on the recently formed Youth Partnership Board for Leicester.

 

      1. The main outputs of the steering group are driven by key themes from the New Parks People Zone Research Report:
        1. Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour
        2. Community Safety
        3. Health and Wellbeing
        4. Substance abuse [RM(3] 
        5. Pride of Place

 

      1. New Parks Community Panel – Regular People Zone updates shared and several people have joined the steering group from presenting at the panel.
      2. Community Leaders who have been awarded People Zone Grants Funding are on the panel and some have been since it’s inception.
      3. Community Leaders who have partook in the Community Leadership Programme are actively involved with the People Zone and support the Steering Group regularly.
      4. Actively secured buy in with a large local organisation [RM(4] that was previously not engaging with the community and is now doing so successfully, to the benefit of many.
      5. Worked together to identify gaps in provision, set up forums to determine exactly what the community wanted and found solutions to put it into action. For example, the need for a separate age appropriate youth group, for those at risk of offending – Now in place. The need for a Crisis Café in the area – Grant applied for, funding secured and recently implemented at the local Community Hub.
      6. Currently orga[RM(5] nising meetings with the new local Councillors [RM(6] to ensure they are aware of People Zones and how they can support the project going forward.

 

  1. Community Payback: Each People Zone has a financial allocation to undertake bespoke Community Payback (CP) projects that can build desistance, support reparation, increase community resilience and reinforce pride of place.

 

    1. Bell Foundry: A women only CP group is in development at a community hub and is being supported by a community leader who sits within the Steering Group. This initiative has been a springboard from which to finalise plans directly with CBC about implementing CP projects across the People Zone and potentially beyond, something that Probation have desperately wanted to achieve for a number of years to enable People on Probation (POPs) within the area better opportunities to complete their Order.

 

      1. Projects must be within a 10-minute radius of welfare facilities to ensure the POPs have access to toilets, water and shelter. It has been traditionally difficult to implement CP projects due to the lack of welfare facilities available within the area. Having developed relationships with community hubs and CBC[RM(7] , the aim is to expand the reach and impact of CP projects by having multiple locations within and around the Bell Foundry People Zone.[RM(8] 

 

      1. A meeting is due to take place to use a local office as a welfare centre from which CP projects can work from to support this expansion.

 

 

    1. Thringstone & Whitwick: Plans are in development with regards to CP projects within this People Zone, although early talks with North West Leicestershire District Council (NWLDC) have identified some potential long-term maintenance-based areas of need. Work will be done to identify a bespoke People Zone project.

 

 

    1. New Parks: Community Payback have successfully completed a project at the local Community Hub. This project completely overhauled overgrown and underutilised land in order to create a bespoke garden, designed with the idea in mind of creating a Wellbeing Gardening Group that is accessible to all in the community. This included planters to grow flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables and raised planters for inclusivity, to ensure disability access. Trees, flowers and seeds were purchased in the offset to get the project off the ground, but a large amount was donated by the local community and Allotment Society. This has enabled multiple other smaller scale projects to be undertaken, such as: teaching young children from the community how to plant their own flowers/fruits and vegetables and teaching local residents how to manage a garden. The Wellbeing Gardening Group is well attended each week and the community is dedicated to ensuring that everything grown is well preserved and taken care of, highlighting that this project has met multiple themes from within the People Zone research report. Going forward, the Gardening Group plans to donate much of the grown produce to the local foodbanks and continue to manage the garden to support the community in other similar ways. Now that the community has formed a positive relationship with the services required to conduct Community Payback projects, ideas are being collated for potential future projects in other areas in great need across the community also.

 

  1. Lighting Audit: An early indication from the research phase within the Bell Foundry People Zone was that for multiple reasons, residents didn’t feel safe when it got dark, and that this was linked to inadequate or broken lighting. MfC created an app that residents could use to raise these issues, to pinpoint the exact location via GPS, and for this information to populate a map that is similar to our online Asset Map (Project: Bell Foundry Lighting (v0) | People Zones - Community Maps)
    1. Following an inaugural light audit walk with residents, steering group members and MfC in October 2022, further walks were undertaken with a Tenancy and Estate Management Officer and a member of the Compliance Team from CBC
    2. Alongside a Designing Out Crime Officer (DOCO) Report, created in September 2022, CBC have set about a long-term project of area improvement with short, medium and longer term objectives to fix and improve the lighting within the Bell Foundry estate, with additional focus on bin store management. An update report from CBC will be available in due course.
    3. This project overlaps with recent developments related to CP projects with the Probation Service as they can support with general maintenance of areas, such as those with high overgrowth of vegetation that have been identified as supporting ASB, the use of illicit substances, and drug dealing.
    4. This project has also facilitated conversations around motivation and permissions in relation to the potential creation of community murals around the Bell Foundry People Zone that would further support the key themes highlighted within the research

 

  1. Newsletter: A quarterly People Zones newsletter is underway and will have input from key strategic partners. It will be available in online and offline versions, and language considerations will also to be given to make it accessible for the multicultural mosaic of each area[RM(9] . It is aimed at being a conduit of information, specific to each area, to raise awareness of progress (e.g. with grants, events, asset map, etc) and to help maintain momentum across the People Zones.

 

  1. Crimestoppers: With an initial pilot in the Bell Foundry soon to be underway, Crimestoppers will be launched across all three People Zones. A hotspot approach will be utilised, using a combination of problem profiles originally created in the earlier stages of People Zone identification, alongside correlating information within each individual research report to identify areas of greatest impact.

 

  1. Adult Education: We are partnering with Leicestershire County Council’s adult education providers, GoLearn! and Multiply, who offer a variety of free to access courses in adult education centres and suitably identified community hubs across LLR, to initially support with developing opportunities around digital, wellbeing, and culinary skillsets within the People Zones. These gaps were highlighted within the research as potential steppingstones to increased community wellbeing and resilience.

 

  1. Public Health: Multiple pilots have been developed with Public Health using the bespoke relationships created as part of our People Zone work to date:

 

    1. A new scheme, Mental Health Friendly Places (MHFP) was piloted within the Bell Foundry People Zone in early 2023. The idea is to upskill members of the community and organisations to feel more confident in starting conversations around mental health, with a view to reducing suicide rates. In the Bell Foundry, we targeted hairdressers, barbers, tattoo parlours and beauty parlours as these professionals have thousands of interactions with the general public every year. The feedback gained from the pilot has supported the development of the final programme, which is set to launch on World Suicide Prevention Day in September 2023. The programme will sit on the ‘Start a Conversation’ website and will provide a dashboard, training and toolkit to support organisations and the public to overcome the stigma of suicide and make a change.

 

    1. Public Health are implementing a Trauma Informed Officer into their Healthy Tots and Healthy Schools work. We are working on a pilot through the life-course for primary schools and their potential feeder pre-school settings within the People Zones

 

    1. Public Health have been working on a needs assessment for Social Housing tenants in Charnwood, with a view to eventually broadening it across LLR. Utilising the assets within the Bell Foundry Steering Group, with the Chair being a social housing tenant and holding a seat on a Housing Advisory Group with CBC, we were able to get vital feedback about content and the suitability of questions being asked before the final draft is distributed.

 

  1. Charnwood Health and Wellbeing Partnership: Within the Charnwood Community Health and Wellbeing Plan for 2023 – 2026, the Bell Foundry People Zone has been identified as a valuable community asset. This partnership is a constant source of professional collaboration that has been crucial to the development and maintenance of some key partnerships and pilot schemes.

 

  1. North-West Leicestershire Integrated Neighbourhood Team: We have been working alongside other NWL partners who sit within the NWL INT Board and who [RM(10] are collaborating to develop their respective Community Health and Wellbeing Plan. The aim is to gain recognition as per its Charnwood Counterpart with regards to being a valuable community asset whilst continuing to have input over priority setting.

 

  1. Leicester Youth Partnership: Co-founded with the Violence Reduction Network (VRN), in conjunction with other agencies such as: Leicestershire Police, Leicester City Council and Detached Youth Service. Supported by organisations such as: Turning Point, Young Leicestershire and Leicester YMCA. Aims to identify gaps in local community provision and work collaboratively to fill said gaps going forward.

 

  1. Mini Police: Mini-Police was launched as a pilot in two out of three People Zones. It has been a great success, with Thringstone Primary School developing an off-shoot Parent Ambassadors Programme to promote engagement with harder to reach families. It is understood that Mini-Police have had large-scale expressions of interest for the next round and, following renewed contact with a school for the third People Zone, they can benefit from the programme as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People Zones Grants Round for 2022/23

 

  1. The Grants round for People Zones were opened post research to ensure that applications made by the community were based on the research results allowing for improvements to be made based on any gaps identified by people who live and work in the community.

 

  1. The Bell Foundry People Zone funding was open for four weeks from Monday 30th January 2023 to Monday 27th February 2023. The PCC approved to fund 2 bids in this round. This equates to a funding commitment of £9,950.00

 

 

 

Organisation:

 

Name of Project:

 

 

Project Brief:

 

 

Amount of Funding:

 

10th Loughborough Rainbows & Brownies

 

10th Loughborough Rainbows & Brownies

 

Provide a safe space for young girls. Regular 'days away' trips and 'pack holidays'. Work towards badges that help young girls to develop lifelong skills. Plan to run community days to encourage more young girls from the Bell Foundry area to join.

£5,150.00

Loughborough Muslim Centre

 

Project Outreach

Provide young people with a safe space and encourage taking pride in their community. Plan to open a youth club on Saturdays, set up a weekly football club on Wednesday evenings, provide day trips and residential trips in the summer and hold workshops tailored to young people to raise awareness around local issues.

 

£4,800.00[RM(11] 

 

  1. The New Parks People Zone funding was open for four weeks from Monday 13th February 2023 Monday 13th March 2023. The PCC approved to fund 6 bids in this round. This equates to a funding commitment of £38,277.06

 

 

 

Organisation:

 

 

Name of Project:

 

Project Brief:

 

 

Amount of Funding:

 

Leicester West Circuit

 

 

New Parks Men’s Shed

Provide a safe, welcoming, inclusive space to work with men who have metal health issues, other health problems, feel lonely, isolated, and possibly suicidal, as well as those who constantly struggle to find suitable work.

£4,889.08

Ihya al Uloom

An Nakhlah Academy

Provide education to young people, with a strong focus on being good citizens and refraining from anti-social behaviour.  Provide diversionary activity, encourage young people to contribute to their community and give them the opportunity to voice their goals and aspirations.

£4,896.00

Whitehouse Allotment & Garden Society

 

 

Whitehouse Garden Project

Give people access to allotment space to teach them new skills and help them to grow their own healthy, nutritious food. Offer support to people of all ages, struggling with issues such as mental health, physical health, drug and alcohol addiction etc and help them to find a new, more positive purpose in life.

£9,740.98.

GNR8 Academy

 

Open Gym

Look to improve health and wellbeing in the New Parks Community by offering open access fitness/gym sessions for adults free of charge. Will provide a safe and supportive space to exercise, work on physical and mental health and help the residents to come together and support one another.

£5,680.00

GNR8 Academy

 

Easter Camp

Provide a multi-sport camp during the Easter holidays for young people from the New Parks area aged 6-16. Free for low-income families and will help support young people's health and wellbeing, as well as act as diversionary activity for those at risk of engaging in Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour.

£3,920.00

New Parks Adventure Playground

 

Venny Social Spot

Aim is to reduce Anti-Social Behaviour by providing a safe space for young people to get away from negative influences and offer them new activities, opportunities, and workshops to encourage engagement from new and existing attendees of The Venny.

£9,135

 

  1. The Thringstone & Whitwick People Zone funding was open four weeks from Monday 27th February 2023 to Monday 27th March 2023. The PCC approved to fund 4 bids in this round. This equates to a funding commitment of £14,197.00

 

 

 

Organisation:

 

 

Name of Project:

 

Project Brief:

 

 

Amount of Funding:

 

Charles Booth Centre

 

Sunday Movie Mornings

The aim is to create a cinema like experience to get families socialising, which will reduce isolation in the community and provide an activity for all ages to engage in and enjoy, without the barrier of cost applying.

£4,673.29

Whitwick Scouts Group

 

Broadband

This will ensure that the group has reliable access to Scouting program content, resources and badgework, all of which are now only accessible online. This will also support the wider community, as digital workshops and internet safety sessions will be offered to stem the digital divide.

£3,024.00

Whitwick Scouts Group

 

Scout and DofE Awards

This will expand the older (14 – 25 years) youth provision in new and exciting ways, by providing the necessary equipment to support top Scouting awards and a new initiative of Duke of Edinburgh Expeditions and training.

£4,514.46

Whitwick Scouts Group

 

Squirrels Section

This will open a Squirrel section, which will be ran for children between the ages of 4-6 years old; with the hope that they will move onto Beaver and Scout sections as they grow older.

£1,985.25

 

Finance

 

  1. The budget for 2023/24 has now been agreed:

 

Title

Description

2023/24

Grant funding

Grant funding will be split into 3 separate rounds. All 3 People Zones will be eligible for each round and will be able to apply for a maximum grant of £10,000 per application.  All grants’ applications must meet the objectives set by the research outcomes.

£180,000.00

Community Payback

This project is in partnership with People on Probation (POPs) from the local area to undertake the work at a community hub within the People Zone. The Community Payback team will also be offering POPs to undertake work placements within local organisations in the People Zones to gain employability skills. Community Payback builds on the ethos of People Zones.  Money spent on this is only for materials.

£15,000.00

Events

To consider events and initiatives which support People Zones.

£6,000.00

Communications & materials

To promote People Zones and support the steering groups

£3,000.00

Evaluation

It is key that we evaluate this project prior to setting up new People Zones. The evaluation will be based on the same surveys that have been conducted in the research phase.

£25,000.00

Total

 

 

£289,000.00

 

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