Barnsley Service Plan for inspiring
and mobilising volunteers
A message from
the Leader of
Barnsley Council
We have identified Love Where You Live and
Let’s Grow as our service initiatives. They will
provide practical opportunities for volunteers
to impact against these challenges, improve
our neighbourhoods and continue to make
Barnsley a great place to live and work.
Barnsley is
renowned for
having a thriving
voluntary and
community
sector and a
large number of
residents and
community
activists who
generously give
up their free time
to help others. As
a Barnsley resident, I hear each day from our
citizens, and I am always humbled and
amazed at our resilience and willingness to
give back.
Our vision is of a town where Barnsley’s
population is inspired and supported to
volunteer. Where people recognise their
assets, talents and gifts and use these to
achieve great things.
The contribution of volunteers will be vital to
working together for a brighter future, a better
Barnsley and I invite you to consider how this
service plan can be used as a resource for
discovering how you can get involved and
continue to build strong and resilient
communities across the borough.
This is especially important given the extent of
the challenges and changes facing Barnsley.
We are clear that reducing resources will
mean that we will need to look for different
ways of doing things, alongside changing
expectations regarding what can be
delivered and why. We face particular
challenges in addressing health inequalities
and maintaining quality environments with
communities at a time of austerity we must
work with citizens to unlock their potential to
address these challenges and celebrate our
achievements. The role of volunteers as
agents for change will be key in responding to
these challenges and helping to build strong
and resilient communities.
Cllr Sir Steve Houghton, CBE, Leader
2
Executive
Summary
The Cities of Service UK programme is a
fantastic opportunity for Barnsley to work with
our communities to mobilise volunteers to
achieve impact on local challenges. Barnsley
has a strong history of volunteering and social
action. However we need to improve how we
evidence the impact of volunteers and work
collectively with public services to address
local challenges around the environment and
addressing health inequalities. The following
City Service Plan will provide a framework to
address these challenges.
The council’s Leader and Chief Executive are
committed to tackle the borough’s health
inequalities. The vision is to reduce the gap
that exists between the most deprived parts of
the borough as well as nationally between the
borough and England. Child poverty levels are
higher in Barnsley the regional and national
average, with 24.9% of Barnsley children
estimated to be living in relative poverty.
Locally over half of parents living in poverty
say they have cut back on food and over a
quarter say they have skipped meals in the
past year. The Cities of Service funding will
help us increase the momentum on some of
our local initiatives with particular focus on
community food and growing schemes.
Our Love Where You Live service initiative is all
about working with local people to help make
our communities a great place to live. It’s
about inspiring everyone to think about where
they live and findings ways to transform and
make our neighbourhoods places where we
can all take pride in now and in the future. We
hope in partnership with local people and
businesses to improve our green and urban
spaces, keeping our environment clean and
well cared for and encourage the community
to take pride in the environment.
The initiative will take place across the
borough. It will build on the work of the Ward
Alliances which have identified ‘Pride in the
Environment’ as a priority in their ward plans
and the development of local environmental
projects.
3
Let’s Grow will seek to address the lack of
growing spaces within defined areas of
Barnsley by encouraging local people to
volunteer in the development of community
growing centres. It will aim to connect people
to the local environment and give them a
sense of pride in where they live. The Let's
Grow initiative will also address some of the
recognised challenges that exist around
Barnsley residents having access to fresh
produce and the knowledge and ability to
grow and harvest this themselves. For this
reason our Public Health Directorate will have
a key role to play in supporting the delivery of
this agenda, linked to Ward Alliance priorities.
We believe the impact of the programme will
result in communities taking greater pride in
the environment and increased health and
wellbeing. Residents will be inspired to
volunteer, celebrate their many assets, gifts
and strengths and see service as a part of
what it means to be a Barnsley citizen. Success
will see resilient communities with strong social
networks and active citizens taking
responsibility for their own wellbeing. Imagine
a Barnsley where shared spaces – parks,
growing centres, community centres, villages
and neighbourhoods – are a reflection of
what binds citizens together. Where people
have been inspired to get out and work
together to solve local problems, revitalising
physical spaces or bringing young people
together for shared activities, that result in
strong civic spirit.
Taking forward Cities of Service in Barnsley will
build on our many voluntary and community
organisations who already work in
neighbourhoods seeking to encourage
volunteerism. The Council will work in
partnership with Voluntary Action Barnsley to
take forward our Cities of Service Plan and aim
to engage more citizens in local projects that
help to address local challenges.
4
Introduction to
Cities of Service
History
movement, we have developed relationships
with the other UK Cities of Service - [Bristol,
Kirklees, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Swindon and
Telford & Wrekin].
The Cities of Service coalition and its member
cities aim to find new and innovative ways to
harness the power of volunteers to solve
strategic city issues. The coalition builds on the
work of New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, who pioneered the approach,
designating New York as a service city and
creating opportunities for thousands of citizens
to serve.
Vision
Cities of Service efforts focus on “impact
volunteering”—volunteer strategies that target
community needs, use best practices and set
clear outcomes and measures to gauge
progress.
Many other cities have replicated the
approach. Today in the United States, the
Cities of Service coalition includes more than
170 mayors, and it is successfully mobilising
thousands of volunteers to improve their city
one task at a time. Volunteers give their time
on high impact initiatives in the service of
others and their local city, often co-ordinated
by a Chief Service Officer. Cities in the
coalition share successful strategies to ensure
the most effective initiatives are copied by
others.
•
The key aims of the programme are to:
Help local government find best ways to
mobilise energy, talents and passions of
people to make a real difference to local
priorities.
Focus on measuring results: rather than
measure how many people volunteer, we
measure the impact those volunteers have.
Create strong leaders to champion the
programme and create support within the
city.
•
•
How does it work?
Over the past three years, the movement has
spread internationally to inspire Team London
and “Count on Me” in Madrid.
We have undergone a staged process to
identify local challenges that we can address
by mobilising volunteers alongside public
services and have worked with partners in the
community, voluntary sector, and with local
businesses to develop projects that can have
an impact on those challenges. We have
developed clear metrics to track our progress
and demonstrate the impact our projects are
having. We have also made a commitment to
communicate our results on a regular basis.
There is more detail about our initiatives and
intended impact later in this document.
Cities of Service UK
Now Barnsley has the opportunity to join this
movement. We are one of seven pioneering
local authorities working with the Cabinet
Office and Nesta, the UK’s innovation charity,
to adapt the Cities of Service model to the UK.
Barnsley has received funding, tools, training
and mentoring support from Nesta and the
Cabinet Office as part of the programme.
Because this work is part of a wider
5
Barnsley as a
City of Service
Volunteering helps participants as well as
recipients. It helps young people develop their
skills. It helps education and attainment and it
is a pathway to employability as well as being
a transition from school to work. It helps
loneliness and inactivity and is associated with
improved health, higher self-esteem and
personal satisfaction. Building on this we need
to be more ambitious and imaginative, by
giving volunteers better support and finding
ways of harnessing their contribution and
developing the concept of service.
The council is working together for a brighter
future, a better Barnsley. We will drive change
and improvements to achieve the following
positive outcomes, including:
A brighter future where people achieve
their potential
A better Barnsley where our residents think and
feel we are making a difference together
Working together with our partners and
communities
•
•
•
Our three priorities
(https://www.barnsley.gov.uk/about-us/thecouncils-corporate-plan)
to help us reach our vision are:
Growing the economy
Improving people’s potential and
achievement
Changing the relationship between the
council and community
The strength of every community in Barnsley
lies in the commitment of the people who live
there to make it a special place that everyone
can feel proud of and part of. Through Cities
of Service UK we are hoping to unlock the
capacity in our communities and optimise one
of the resources still in great supply: the
willingness of people to help each other. We
aim to mobilise citizens more effectively around
locally agreed priorities and to achieve
measurable impact through volunteering.
•
•
•
Through our participation in the Cities of
Service UK programme and complementing
the Barnsley Inspiring Volunteering Strategy,
we hope to explore together how the renewal
of civic activism and community action might
improve attachment and networks between
people, build local participation, social capital
and cultivate public service innovation. However,
we need to improve our skills in connecting
with Barnsley citizens on local priorities and
realising how, through volunteering and social
action, local priorities can be met.
NESTA (http://www.nesta.org.uk/project/citiesservice-uk) and the Cabinet Office are
providing £30,000 to support the delivery of the
Barnsley programme over the next two years.
This funding will be utilised to support the
delivery of our two service initiatives;
Love Where You Live (http://lwylbarnsley.co.uk)
– a programme of Pride in the Environment
schemes and Let’s Grow – a programme of
Food and Growing schemes. This funding will
be complemented by our Ward Alliance Fund
grants programme which in particular supports
projects that address local challenges through
volunteering and social action. During 2014 /
2015 approximately £15,000 per ward is
available to support social action projects.
Nationally 29% of people volunteered at least
once a month during 2012/13. This contributed
an estimated £22 billion to the UK economy.
Research undertaken in Barnsley reflects that
volunteering levels are similar to national levels
with 25% of people living in the borough
volunteering during 2012 reflecting the critical
links between service and society.
6
“
Alison a volunteer group leader from the
Worsbrough Green Fingered Wanderers
group commented
I welcome the Love Where You Live
campaign, it is a great tool to bring people
together and repair disjointed
communities. Volunteering is a great way
to meet new people and break down
stigmas – all sorts of people come together
to achieve a common goal. It’s a fantastic
feeling looking back and seeing the
difference you’ve made.
Further support is available through local
businesses Employer Supported Volunteering
schemes which Voluntary Action Barnsley
(http://www.vabarnsley.org.uk/) helps to
coordinate.
We believe the impact of the programme will
result in communities taking greater pride in
the environment and increased health and
wellbeing. Our Love Where You Live campaign
will support people to become engaged in
local initiatives that contribute to make
Barnsley a great place to live.
“
“
”
Councillor Houghton commented that
The Cities of Service UK programme
provides a fantastic opportunity for
Barnsley to mobilise volunteers around the
Borough’s priorities and to reward people
for the wonderful things that they do in
their communities. Cities of Service will
support us to develop a campaign to grow
social action and a culture of active
citizenship and service.
”
Worsbrough Green Fingered
Wanderers community picnic area
renovation project
Rose a 78 year old volunteer commented
If it hadn’t of been for the Love Where
You Live campaign I wouldn’t have been
involved with the Green Fingered
Worsbrough Wanderers. It seems to have
motivated more people to volunteer. For
me it’s about improving where I live and
socialising. I love the countryside that is on
my doorstep.
”
If you would like to find out more about
volunteering in Barnsley, please visit the
VAB website www.vabarnsley.org.uk
7
Understanding
our priority areas
Priority
Area
This will be Barnsley’s specific impact area that
we want to address through inspiring local
people and mobilising volunteers. We believe
that through the work we have done to
identify this as a local priority, we can
maximise community interest and involvement
by building on this strong foundation.
Community and
Civic Pride
In 2013, Barnsley Council introduced new area
governance arrangements, which include 6
Area Councils and 21 Ward Alliances. The
Area Councils represent a localised model of
governance for the Council whilst the Ward
Alliances bring local Elected Members
together with Barnsley citizens to respond to
local challenges and grow a culture of
community action and enterprise.
Pride in the environment is also a high priority
for our local community leaders - the Elected
Members and one which will come under
increasing pressure as the ability to maintain
the standards which people expect comes
under pressure through these austere times.
Through discussions with Ward Alliances and
the wider voluntary and community sector we
have collectively agreed on the Love Where
You Live identity. This involved consultation
through our neighbourhood networks who
agreed overwhelmingly that ‘Love Where You
Live’ would connect with the public, build on
the existing work of volunteers and provide
opportunities to mobilise others around local
challenges.
In assessing Barnsley’s challenges and
identifying where volunteers can make a
difference, our Ward Alliances have being
going through a process of neighbourhood
planning to identify local priorities, based
upon community intelligence. A common
theme across all 21 wards can be summarised
as ‘Pride in the Environment'.
8
Priority
Area
Food Poverty and
Healthy Eating
Complementing Love Where You Live our
Let's Grow initiative will build upon the public's
pride in the environment and seek to engage
them in developing community growing
centres helping to address health and
wellbeing issues.
The stark reality of health inequalities in
Barnsley speak for themselves with the life
expectancy gap between the most deprived
and least deprived areas in Barnsley being 6
years for males and 7.5 years for females.
Child poverty levels are also higher than the
regional and national average. Approx. 10,000
people in Barnsley have accessed specialist
mental health services and 16% of the
population have depression which is
significantly higher that the England figure.
Barnsley is an area of relative poverty with
poor health outcomes and one of the lowest
life expectancies in the country, with low fruit
and vegetable consumption and obesity
contributing to 17% of preventable deaths.
However if we focus on using our assets then
you notice that the borough of Barnsley has
lots of good arable land and many of the least
well off estates have relatively large gardens.
Barnsley currently has 68 allotment sites with
1,688 plots which are owned and managed
by the council. There are nearly 1,000 people
on the allotment waiting lists with many now
closed to further applicants, which highlights a
need for more allotments or green spaces
turned over to allotments to meet that need.
9
Locally over half of parents in poverty (61%)
say they have cut back on food and over a
quarter (26%) say they have skipped meals in
the past year. Barnsley has recently set up a
Foodbank Partnership, using a hub and spoke
model, to support families living in poverty or
struggling to cope in these times of austerity
and we hope that our Let’s Grow service
initiative will help to address some of these issues
by encouraging and supporting residents to
lead more active and healthy lives through their
participation in community growing initiatives.
regarding the ‘food agenda’ and to identify
areas that have little activity with the intention
of supporting a more holistic approach to
food, growing and distribution. As part of this
process, interventions will be divided into
Borough wide and locality based projects,
targeting some of the most deprived areas of
the Borough, through Let’s Grow – our
programme of food and growing initiatives.
Co-ordinating these activities better, under the
banner of Let’s Grow, by providing tools,
knowledge and/or information, allowing
people to develop the necessary growing skills
and cooking healthily, we have an
opportunity to influence and encourage
residents to take charge of their lives. The
growing centres developed across Barnsley
will also give local service providers a vehicle
to encourage and support service users back
into mainstream society. Which in turn will
mean that Barnsley as a whole will have an
improved sense of health and wellbeing.
Our Let’s Grow service initiative will also build
on the extensive research undertaken by the
Council’s Public Health Intelligence Team who
have produced 21 Ward Based Health
Inequality profiles that provide an evidence
base to help shape the priorities and
interventions needed at ward level. Public
Health have also carried out a Borough wide
‘mapping and gapping’ exercise to find out
what exactly is happening in Barnsley
10
Introducing the
Service Initiatives
In order to deliver against this impact area, we
have identified two service initiatives that we
wish to develop through Cities of Service UK:
Service
Initiative
Love Where
You Live
The initiative will take place across the borough
building on the work of the 21 Ward Alliances
which have identified Pride in the Environment
as a priority in their ward plans and the
development of local environmental projects.
Love Where You Live is all about working with
local people to help make our communities a
great place to live. It’s about inspiring
everyone to think about where they live and
findings ways to transform and make our
neighbourhoods places where we can all take
pride in now and in the future. We hope to
improve our green and urban spaces in
partnership with local people and businesses,
keep our environment clean and well cared
for and encourage the community to take
pride in the environment.
Examples of projects include: community clean
ups, tree, seed or bulb planting, creating an
outdoor community art space, supporting the
maintenance of your local park and
improving derelict spaces.
11
Ward Alliances will supply small grants through
the Ward Alliance Fund for community groups
to purchase the supplies needed for their local
project development. Our Area Teams will also
work alongside volunteers to coordinate local
authority services to support the initiatives. The
grants will encourage community groups to
identify priority projects and develop
volunteer-led solutions.
individual service as a citizen of Barnsley. Love
Where You Live will support people to take
pride in the environment and lead
programmes of environmental action linked to
local priorities.
Through the Cities of Service programme we
have the opportunity to learn more about
how volunteering impacts on those it involves
as well as those it reaches. We hope to gain
valuable insights into the motivations and
changes that take place through providing
service.
Voluntary Action Barnsley will broker the
involvement of local private sector companies
through Employer Supported Volunteering
schemes matching private sector expertise
and time to local projects and volunteers.
We anticipate that approximately 420 new
volunteers will be engaged in Love Where You
Live environmental initiatives in the first year of
operation promoting a sense of service, active
citizenship and an increased number of
people feeling pride in their environment. This
will be realised through neighbourhoods being
revitalised and parks and green spaces
improved through social action. Through their
participation in Love Where You Live projects
residents will have increased confidence, skills
and knowledge to enable more community
led projects to be developed through Ward
Alliances, helping to build strong and resilient
communities across the borough. Looking to
the future and building on the success of local
initiatives we anticipate approximately 2,000
new volunteers becoming engaged in social
action in 5 years time and this contributing to
the wider outcome of an increased number of
residents feeling pride in the environment.
We believe by providing small grants and
coordinating local authority services,
Volunteers can achieve measurable impact in
local communities and strengthen social
capital. We will track the number of areas
transformed, as well as waste collected,
number of trees planted, community gardens
created and number of new community
organisations developed.
Whilst we recognise the incredible contribution
that many of our residents already make to
ensure that Barnsley is a special place for
those you live here, our challenge is to grow
this and create a culture where everyone who
can, is able to make a difference to where
they live. Love Where You Live will help us to
build the momentum needed to put
volunteering on the map, so that it becomes a
natural choice for people to offer to put
something back and provide their own
12
Service
Initiative
Bringing residents together through community
growing and cooking initiatives will contribute
to a greater sense of community spirit. By
encouraging residents to become more
physically active, develop new skills and eat a
healthier diet, alongside encouraging mental
health service users to get involved, will
contribute to an increased number of
residents reporting improved health and
wellbeing.
Let's grow
Utilising the priority identified through the Ward
Alliances, the Let's Grow initiative will build
upon the public's pride in the environment
and seek to engage them in developing
community growing centres. As well as
connecting people with their local
environment in their community, the Let's Grow
initiative would also address some of the
recognised challenges that exist around
Barnsley residents having access to fresh
produce and the knowledge and ability to
grow and harvest these for themselves. For this
reason our Public Health Directorate will have
a key role to play in supporting the delivery of
this agenda, albeit through the established
local mechanisms of the Ward Alliances.
Barnsley has a history of community
development type activities, through
community partnerships and we would seek to
build on these relationships. We have
identified opportunities where we could
develop Let's Grow initiatives with some core
groups of existing volunteers and service users,
through the allocation of resources, provision
of equipment, or connectivity with land to
develop.
13
Where there is no existing interest, Let’s Grow
will provide a framework on how best to
recruit volunteers to develop a growing
and/or cooking programme that also
encourages children and young people to
engage. They will be able to assist in basic
tasks, could be given responsibility for a
specific activity, which would also encourage
parents to get involved and provide quality
time for parents and children to develop a
community garden, plot or allotment. A
training programme will be delivered to
provide residents with skills in food and
growing to support the development of
Growing Champions in communities.
We have identified six Food and Growing
networks that will be set up and aligned with
the Ward Alliances, these will provide the
vehicle for residents, workers, local businesses,
or anyone interested in food and/or growing
to come together to enable co-ordination,
exchange of information, ideas and
equipment in a specific location of Barnsley.
By supporting residents to use their own
gardens or reclaim derelict and unused land
we well as improving access to healthy food in
some of the most deprived areas of the
borough. We will also seek to support the
Barnsley Foodbank by donating excess fresh
produce to local hubs.
Each of the projects will actively recruit people
from the local community by advertising at
local events, posters in local shops and word
of mouth. The ‘Love where you Live’ banner
will also be a vehicle where interested
residents can be signposted to growing
projects in their local area or supported to
cultivate their own gardens for fruit and
vegetable growing. It is expected that this will
increase the number of people volunteering,
number of plots cultivated and an increase
the number of local residents growing in their
own gardens. This will lead to a reduction in
mental health problems and depression, and
that people will be fitter due to the increase in
physical activity and an increase in the amount
of fresh fruit and vegetables that are eaten.
14
What success
will look like
Love Where You Live initiatives will provide a
programme of environmental improvement
initiatives that will help increase the number of
people feeling pride in their local environment
because it is more clean and pleasant. This will
be measured through residents having greater
satisfaction with the local environment and
residents regularly participating in Love Where
You Live environmental projects.
Let’s Grow initiatives will help increase the
number of residents reporting having
improved health and wellbeing through their
participation in community growing and cook
and eat initiatives. This will be measured
through the number of residents who are more
physically active as a consequence of their
involvement and residents having more skills
and confidence to grow fresh produce on
community growing spaces and at home.
We hope to support residents to take pride in
where they live and celebrate their assets and
strengths and foster a culture where residents
are inspired and supported to volunteer.
Knowing we
are achieving
There is an increase in residents
satisfaction with the local
environment
Knowing we
are achieving
There is an increase in residents
participation in projects
We know that more litter is collected
through community action
There is an increase in the number of
residents who are more physically
active as a consequence of their
involvement
There is an increase in the number of
environmental projects that are led
by community groups
There is an increase in the number of
residents who consume fresh
produce
There is an increase in the number of
volunteers and volunteer hours
Number of Community Growing
Champions trained
Number of Cook and Eat sessions
delivered and participants attending
15
Bringing it all
together...
Priority Challenge
Community and Civic Pride
Service Initiative
Love Where You Live
Impact Metrics
There is an increase in residents
satisfaction with the local environment
Priority Challenge
There is an increase in residents
participation in projects
Food Poverty and Healthy Eating
Service Initiative
There is an increase in the number of
volunteers and volunteer hours
Let's Grow
We know that more litter is collected
through community action
Impact Metrics
There is an increase in the number of
environmental projects that are led by
community groups
There is an increase in the number of
residents who are more physically active
as a consequence of their involvement
Ultimate Goal
There is an increase in the number of
residents who consume fresh produce
Increased number of residents feeling
pride in their environment
Number of Community Growing
Champions trained
Number of Cook and Eat sessions
delivered and participants attending
Ultimate Goal
Increased number of residents report
having improved health and wellbeing
16
Acknowledgements
The One Barnsley Inspiring Volunteering Group has acted as the strategic programme board for the
development of this Service Plan.
Special thanks to the following strategic
partner organisations:
Barnsley Council Departments:
Voluntary Action Barnsley
Communities and Area Governance Service
Barnsley College
Integrated Youth Service
Barnsley Hospital Trust
Public Health
Barnsley Citizens Advice Bureau
Communications
Neighbourhood Watch
Berneslai Homes
17
Barnsley initiative
overview
Priority Area
Impact Service
Initiative
Description
Impact Metrics
Community and
Civic Pride
Love Where
You Live
A programme of
community
environmental
initiatives led by
volunteers
- Residents have greater satisfaction with
the local environment
- Residents regularly participate in
Love Where You Live projects
- Number volunteers and volunteer hours
- Amount of litter collected
- Number of community led environmental
initiatives
Food poverty and
health eating
Let’s Grow
A programme of
community growing
and healthy eating
initiatives
- Residents are more physically active as a
consequence of their involvement
- Residents consume more fresh produce
- Number of Community Growing
Champions trained
- Number of Cook and Eat sessions
delivered and participants attending
18
Ultimate Goal
Goals
Lead Partner
Launch date
Increased number of residents
feeling pride in their environment
Engage 400 new volunteers
in social action in year 1
Communities and
Area Governance
Sept 2014
Increased number of residents
report having improved health
and wellbeing
Six Community Growing sites
and networks developed
Public Health
Sept 2014
200 volunteers engaged
19
Get in touch
If you need any more help towards setting up
or carrying out your activity, or maybe just to
ask a burning question, please don’t hesitate
to contact us.
If you have an idea for an event, but don’t
know how to get started, please tell us as we
may be able to help bring your idea to life.
Email us at lovewhereyoulive@barnsley.gov.uk
Call us on 01226 773014
Or post on our Facebook page
www.facebook.com/LWYLBarnsley
Or on Twitter using hashtag #lovebarnsley
G7943 07 14
BARNSLEY
Metropolitan Borough Council