Vanessa Walker
Vanessa Walker has joined iCoCo on secondment from the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) with a particular remit to provide tailored development or support to partnerships to help tackle issues related to community cohesion and preventing violent extremism.
At the IDeA she led performance improvement programmes within local authorities, continues to lead on ethical governance and developed a governance and partnership benchmark and review tool specifically designed to test out culture, behaviour and relationship indicators within cross sector partnerships - positive relationships are a vital ingredient for partners working together to improve cohesion within neighbourhoods.
Vanessa is very keen to discover via local council, LSP and RIEP key stakeholders what the local, sub regional and regional key issues are concerning community cohesion, and what actions and initiatives are already being undertaken such as:
- supporting schools to promote community cohesion
- understanding and monitoring tension and conflict in communities
- population mapping and understanding the complexities of super diversity
- supporting and developing elected members in their community leadership roles to improve community cohesion
- developing partners and local authority officers to better understand the complexities and issues concerning community cohesion - building confidence and capacity
Vanessa would be very pleased to meet with you to explore areas where iCoCo could offer tailored support within your area and/or in collaboration with neighbouring areas and partners.