Tom Makin, Regional Development Officer, Norfolk and Suffolk'

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Community inclusion the national context - Tom
Makin, Help the Aged

• Tom Makin, Regional Development Officer, Norfolk
  and Suffolk.
• Tel [phone] Email tom.makin_at_helptheaged.
  org.uk

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Community inclusion the national context.

• What do we mean by Social Inclusion?
• Reducing inequalities
• Making sure support reaches those who need it
  most
• Ensuring equality of access

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Community inclusion the national context.
What do we mean by Social Exclusion? Social
exclusion is about more than income poverty. It
is a shorthand term for what can happen when
people or areas have a combination of linked
problems, such as unemployment, discrimination,
poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high
crime and family breakdown. These problems are
linked and mutually reinforcing. Social exclusion
is an extreme consequence of what happens when
people don't get a fair deal throughout their
lives, often because of disadvantage they face at
birth, and this disadvantage can be transmitted
from one generation to the next. http//www.cabin
etoffice.gov.uk/social_exclusion_task_force/contex
t/
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Community inclusion the national context.
So what has the government been doing?

• Social Exclusion Unit / Social Exclusion
  Taskforce
• Initially focussed on
• neighbourhood renewal
• rough sleepers
• teenage pregnancy
• young people not in education, training or
  employment
• truancy and school exclusion

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Community inclusion the national context.
So what has the government been doing? Contd

• Examples of government activity
• Sure Start - to improve the health and wellbeing
  of pre-school children in deprived areas joined
  up services (North Walsham)
• Connexions, a one-stop advice service for
  teenagers about education, training and
  employment (Mundesley)
• Minimum Wage.

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Community inclusion the national context.
So what has the government been doing? Contd

• Neighbourhood Renewal Unit
• Neighbourhood Renewal Funding
• Safer Stronger Communities Funding
• New Deal For Communities
• Concentrates on the most deprived Local Authority
  districts across the country to tackle
• Crime
• Anti-social behaviour
• Education
• Housing
• Livability how to make an area a better
  place to live in
• Health inequalities
• Worklessness
• Great Yarmouth, Norwich, Kings Lynn and West
  Norfolk

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Community inclusion the national context.
Key question How are decisions made about which
communities get more government funding? - By
using the Index of Multiple Deprivation
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Community inclusion the national context.

• Index of Multiple Deprivation, what does it
  measure?
• Income
• Employment
• Health Deprivation and Disability
• Education Skills and Training
• Barriers to Housing and Services
• Crime
• The Living Environment
• Using the above factors means that Neighbourhood
  Renewal Funding and related funding very often
  goes to urban areas!

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Community inclusion the national context.

• More key questions
• Why does more attention get paid to urban areas?
  
• How does the government measure the information
  contained within the Index of Multiple
  Deprivation and use it to make decisions?
• Dont rural areas or sparsely populated areas
  such as North Norfolk have these problems too?
• What about older people? Arent they at risk of
  Social Exclusion too?

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Community inclusion the national context.

• Next Steps
• Find out more about how the government takes
  decisions on where to concentrate funding
• Ask yourselves whether you feel this is a fair
  way of looking at things
• Ask your decision-makers / Local Authority /
  Local Strategic Partnership about what they are
  doing to raise the profile of the problems
  affecting communities in North Norfolk

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What is Help the Aged doing about Social
Exclusion?

• Help the Aged Corporate Themes
• Reducing Poverty
• Reducing Isolation
• Challenging Neglect
• Defeating Ageism
• Preventing Future Disadvantage

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What is Help the Aged doing about Social
Exclusion?

• National Policy Priorities include
• Sustainable Communities (local services,
  transport, housing, safety, involvement)
• Equality and Diversity
• Access to Care
• National Campaigns include
• Elder Abuse
• Just Equal Treatment (age discrimination)

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What is Help the Aged doing about Social
Exclusion?

• Regional Development Teams across the country
  focus on areas in which older people face greater
  disadvantage
• Development work with local older peoples
  groups and partnerships, help to develop local
  services in areas of high disadvantage
• Work with local older peoples forums and
  networks ensure older people are more effectively
  involved in local decision-making (eg. Norfolk
  Older Peoples Forum)

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What is Help the Aged doing about Social
Exclusion?

• Nationally managed projects for example
• Your Money Matters
• Older people, financial management, debt advice
• National Programme local project - Ipswich
• A Call in Time
• This programme supports isolated older people by
  developing a range of telephone-based support
  services
• National Programme local project Southminster,
  Essex
• The Sunshine Project
• Volunteers working with groups of care home
  residents, currently focussing on activities
  including helping residents to learn IT /
  internet skills to help them avoid becoming
  isolated (Essex)

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Further information

• For further support and advice Andrew Campbell
  , VCS Together / NVS
• Help the Aged Tom Makin, Regional Development
  Officer, Norfolk Suffolk
• Tel [phone] Email tom.makin_at_helptheaged
  .org.uk