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Promoting cohesion

7. What are you doing to make your work on community cohesion, promoting equalities and anti-discrimination visible and to counter media myths and stereotyping?

Community tensions are often caused by perceptions based on fears and misunderstandings rather than facts. This question is about how you promote the values of equality and diversity, challenge unfair discrimination and counter negative and misleading stories

Self assessment questions

  • Do you adopt a proactive approach to promoting the values of community cohesion, equality and diversity to your staff and to public and patients?
  • What media do you use to promote those values - information leaflets, community events, feeding good news stories to the local media etc?
  • Do you work with partners on this?
  • How do you know that some communities have negative perceptions about people from other communities? 
  • If you know of particular negative perceptions do you target them specifically or through more general publicity?
  • Do leaders address specific issues through the media to combat myths that may lead to tension and resentment? (e.g. providing facts about how  needs vary and how resources are distributed)

Some examples of good practice

Many PCTs and Local Authorities have built messages about equality and diversity into their communications strategies and some make specific reference to community cohesion. The 'Community cohesion: seven steps practitioners toolkit' (2005), at step 5, explores the advantages and risks of four different approaches to challenging and changing perceptions used by the Community Cohesion Pathfinders - low key, incremental, high profile and indirect (not labelling it Community Cohesion but building 'myth busting' into existing programmes). Charnwood and Bury both used a low key approach. They found that it built a solid foundation but was slow and not challenging enough to counter some perceptions. Kirklees, using a more high profile approach, found that it is essential to equip messengers (front line staff) with the right skill training, particularly how to deal with disagreement and conflict. Several of the pathfinders found that simply encouraging people from different backgrounds to talk to each other on an informal basis is the best way of breaking down barriers between communities so they designed service delivery methods in ways which set up the opportunities for 'banal encounters'. Other lessons from the pathfinders were:

  1. Use children and young people as a gateway to the rest of their family
  2. Build in a process for testing and challenging on a frequent basis, enabling you to establish long term trends
  3. Avoid language that conjures up stereotypes
  4. Get on with the job and don't waste time on badging things with public sector terminology (like community cohesion or conflict resolution)
  5. Don't expect perceptions to change overnight

'REWIND' is a national project, based in Sandwell, which works with schools and community organisations, exploring the roots of racism as a social construct. It raises awareness and counters myths about racial characteristics using knowledge of the history of migrations and scientific evidence about evolution. REWIND works across a wide range of public policy areas, training professionals in the fields of Health, Police, Education, Youth Work, Social Work and Community Work. It has proved to be a very effective way of countering racial myths and stereotypes.

Contact: david.allport@nhs.net

Coventry's Local Strategic Partnership focused on "Realities rather than myths". They did not challenge myths in general but used participative research to identify specific fears amongst members of the community. They then focused on countering those specific fears with facts through meetings and  leaflets.

Developing a good working relationship with the local media is another valuable way of countering myths. In its response to the Commission on Integration and Cohesion, the Government relates that Boston Borough council were concerned about negative perceptions about the town presented in the media. CLG put them in touch with Leicester City Council and the Leicester Mercury (who had a relationship based on presenting clear facts rather than supposition). This provided an environment in which they could explore ways of engaging with the local media around facts. An action plan was then developed that has led to more supportive coverage and better promotion of cohesion.

In Newcastle upon Tyne, a local volunteer Hari Shukla collaborated with "The journal", a local paper and with prominent local organisations to create a regular supplement called "Living together". The paper featured stories about the positive contributions all communities are making to the life of the city. They included stories about the contributions made by asylum seekers, pieces about local festivals and progress on tackling discrimination and equality issues (see the 'Community cohesion action guide' (LGA, 2004).