1

Working together: community and university partnerships

Abstract

This article examines how government policy has encouraged universities and their community group partnerships to work together through the relationship between the University of Brighton and members of community groups in Hastings who are researching recent educational regeneration in the town. It identifies lessons learnt from engaging community members with such research.

The University of Brighton in Hastings was set up to be a catalyst for change in one of the most deprived coastal towns in the country. The Coastal Regeneration Research Centre (CRRC) was created in 2008 to undertake a research-led programme within, and focused upon, the community and has established a track record of research and engagement in this community. Research projects have been supported by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), East Sussex County Council (ESCC) and Hastings Borough Council (HBC) and the Ore Valley Forum.

The relationship between the University and its partners is exemplified through an example of a pilot project examining use of a children’s centre in Hastings. This research draws upon work by Turning Point, a charity engaged primarily with social care which engages users within the community to become involved in research into the needs of their peers. Turning Point’s successful approach was subsequently adopted in the pilot project examining how parents of pre-school children engage with a children’s community centre in a deprived area of Hastings. The pilot project involved two experienced parent researchers supporting six parent volunteers in their interviews with local parents of young children who engage to varying degrees with the local children’s centre.

A University partnership

Higher education institutions today find increasing control over their activities by government through funding regimes. They are exhorted to engage in building an economically successful society through the education of students along with an expectation that they will engage with their communities and businesses through knowledge exchange, often known as the ‘third stream’ (UUK, 2007, Webb, 2011). This third stream, or voluntary sector, comprising not-for-profit organisations and social enterprises contain many networks and independent groups. Government policies in the UK have increasingly proselytized the culture of partnership with these groups (Saunders, Payne and Davies, 2007:88) even though such community engagement is not a new phenomenon (Webb, 2011).

The University of Brighton created and developed its partnership working in a number of ways, including a campus based approach, a community university partnership programme (CUPP) and a community research centre which collaborates with a number of community members and groups.

1. Campus based community partnership

The University of Brighton in Hastings originally set up a centre, University Centre Hastings (UCH), aimed at widening participation in a region where there was no local

2

access to higher education. This was the first university centre to be created in the UK. Courses were initially offered by University of Brighton, University of Sussex and University of Christchurch, Canterbury. It opened in September 2003, with just 40 students, five staff and three courses. Since then, it has grown in both size and reputation and provision is now offered primarily through the University of Brighton. Today, there are more than 500 students studying at Hastings. Over 50 staff offer 26 courses in nine areas: Sociology / Applied Social Science, English and Writing, Business and Management, Environmental Biology, Community History, Media, Computing, Sport and Education. The University’s provision at Hastings has now reached the point where it defines its presence as the University of Brighton, Hastings Campus.

2. Community University Partnership Programme

The University of Brighton’s Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP) was created to

contribute to, and benefit from, greater engagement with its local and sub- regional communities, in order to contribute to social inclusion, economic growth and the quality of life, but also in order to improve the quality of education it provides to its learners (University of Brighton, 2002:5)

The programme represents a working partnership which contributes

directly to individual and collective well-being, through a series of externalities that include institutional and community capacity; contributes to strengthening civil society; enhances diversity and the range of those who have access to university resources; contributes to new forms of knowledge’ and impacts directly on learning, teaching and research in the institution (Laing and Maddison, 2007:17)

CUPP is active in Hastings, providing a range of knowledge exchange and community research programmes. The Ore Valley Research Programme is one of these activities which works with young children and families through a focus on resilience. A local community group, the Ore Valley Forum actively engages with the University through a Learning and Skills Research Group which reports to the Hastings and St Leonard’s Local Strategic Partnership.

3. Community Research CentreThe Coastal Regeneration Research Centre (CRRC) was created in 2008 at the UCH to bring together researchers and the community to undertake research into issues affecting Hastings and the St Leonard’s and Area (HSLA) with particular emphasis on social, educational and economic regeneration. It aims to work closely with local Councils, other statutory organisations and stakeholders with a research interest in HSLA. The Centre has been involved in a number of projects funded through the local authority, CUPP and HEFCE. It is currently focusing its attention on

3

raising research capacity amongst staff and students at the Hastings Campus along with maintaining and developing its links with its local partners.

Partnership occurs not just to pool resources and knowledge but to add value for organisations and their clients (Balloch and Taylor, 2001). The ultimate aim is that through partnership more targets and outputs can be achieved. Yet such approaches are not without difficulties. As Saunders et al argue, stronger partners often dominate agendas and it is important to clarify roles and accountability amongst all stakeholders in any partnership.

Policy mechanisms

Worldviews are not made out of whole cloth but are shaped, incrementally and painfully, in the struggle of everyday people with concrete, ambiguous, tenacious, practical problems and questions…..their validity and feasibility are assessed in communities of people who are knowledgeable about the problem at hand, and who are all too conscious of the political, financial and practical constraints that define the situation for which they bear responsibility (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003: 14).

Partnerships between a university and its communities exist within a complex set of often competing policy demands. Policies have been created and implemented through processes which have been contested and struggled over by stakeholders representing differing views of such policies. All policies have been created in the context of the management of limited resources, by people with differing levels of power and agency and implemented by other groups of people who also have differing levels of commitment and ability to act upon situations that are complex, dynamic and controversial. Ozga defines policy as something that is

struggled over, not delivered in tablets of stone, to a grateful or quiescent population (Ozga, 2000:1).

Policy is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals or groups, with the powerless mass underneath, forming an ‘iron triangle’.

Yet although policy creation occurs through the configurations of policy levers such as funding, targets, planning, inspection and policy initiatives, particularly in the post- compulsory learning and skills sector (LSS) (Steer et al, 2007), such policy steering is increased when the wider range of ‘stakeholders’ in public services are involved when tackling social and policy problems (Newman, 2001).

Yet a major difficulty with any policymaking is that people often do not agree on the issue to be tackled, its definition and scope and consequently on how to manage it. Policy processes are politically highly charged and therefore may not be informed by

4

rational argument or draw upon research evidence prior to their creation and implementation. Furthermore, many issues comprise ‘wicked’ problems, ie those which are intransigent or insoluble and it is unsurprising that definitions of these issues are contested even before action is taken to address them.

Hoppe (2010) argues coherently that we need to spend far more resources on defining exactly what the problem or issue is that requires action. He helpfully identifies four types of policy problems: structured problems, moderately structured problems (goals), moderately structured problems (means) and unstructured problems. Structured problems have comparatively good consensus on the issue and how to tackle it. Unstructured, usually wicked problems are difficult to disentangle as there are often ‘webs’ of interrelated problems, and dissent and conflict over which pieces belong to the ‘puzzle’ and over which arrangement of the pieces means ‘solving’ the puzzle. The need to develop a coherent analysis of such problems becomes even more pertinent when we consider involvement of local people in the identification of appropriate policies and practices. Hoppe argues that

..we need a problem-structuring approach to the governance of problems in order to maintain, or perhaps restore, sufficient congruence between problems experienced, perceived and framed by ordinary citizens, and the ways these problems are reconstructed by proximate policy makers. More formally, contemporary democracies, in order to maintain a sufficiently responsive system for the governance of problems, ought to develop more reflexive institutions and practices of policy-oriented and policy-oriented problem structuring (author italics) (Hoppe, 2010:42)

Hoppe (2010) reminds us that ‘”wicked” problems can only be settled, never solved’ (page 9). Yet if people can become involved in helping create policies that will affect them personally, they may help create different solutions, informed by their personal knowledge of what has happened to them when previous policies were enacted.

Given the multitude of constraints in most policy situations, practitioners cannot aspire to resolution of conflicts as they implement policy but they can try to discover a workable definition of the problem, or

the temporary stabilisation of a situation that is unhinged or threatens to become so, or the emergence of personal insight that allows the actor to function more effectively in the situation at hand (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003:23)

In other words practitioners and managers have to work with compromises but they have particular social identities that validate what they do and say, both to themselves and to the world at large. Their ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu, 1977, 1993) can be examined and understood in terms of the ways in which practitioners and managers attempt to remain true to their principles whilst working within the tensions and different viewpoints that comprise their professional environment.

5

Public policies then, deal with a complex, messy world where stakeholders, with their idiosyncratic and possibly paradoxical definitions of the problems and issues at hand, then lead to implementation and therefore practices. It is at this point that the policy drivers can be examined for their influence on practice.

The challenges of implementing policy

It is precisely the working together of a university and its community partners that can begin to address some of these issues. A research partnership can bring together people who have extensive knowledge of the ways in which national policies affect local practices. The identification of the nature of any issue and the testing out of its management provides huge potential for a collaborative working relationship that brings together knowledge and experience of research and practice. The next section describes how the University of Brighton and its Community University Partnership Programme is working together to understand the ‘wicked problems’ in one of its localities, Hastings and how the partnership is attempting to find research answers to these issues. The University, CUPP and CRRC together represent a number of communities of practice which are specifically focused on working with the Hastings and St Leonard’s (HSLA) area.

Why Hastings?

Proportionately more people in Hastings claim benefits than in England as a whole, and when compared to South East England the proportion is even higher. Twice the national proportion claim job seeker’s allowance (JSA). There are more than average claiming incapacity benefit, and the same is true of lone parent benefit. Nearly twice the national average c16-24 year olds claim benefits and the claimant rate for working age and older people is above average (ONS Neighbourhood Statistics).Ore Valley has one of the highest claimant counts with 810 claimants in two super output areas (SOAs) (see Church et al, 2010).

Data at the level of SOAs can be used to pinpoint areas of particular deprivation in Hastings. These are to be found in the social housing estates on the outskirts, particularly in Ore Valley, in central Hastings where there is much private-rented accommodation, and in St, Leonards, again with private-rented accommodation.Fourteen SOAs within HSLA are in the 10 per cent most deprived in England, and seven in the most deprived 5 per cent. One SOA in Baird Ward (Ore Valley) is in the 1 per cent most deprived SOAs in England, and the third most deprived in the South East region.

This situation represents an example of a ‘wicked’ problem that faces the community. The picture in Hastings is of young people who are growing up in the context of socio-economic deprivation. On the whole they have not achieved well in their early stages of schooling, although there is currently improvement in levels of

6

achievement for young people making the transition from school to college or work (Church et al, 2010). There is a huge challenge for the local area to find ways to engage not just children at school and young people at colleges but also their families. If the problems of educational achievement are so deep seated, what can be learnt about how to encourage parents with very young children to help their children, ie the next generation, benefit from educational regeneration in the area?

Can research conducted by people who live in the community, along with those who work in the community find ways to firstly define what the characteristics of the problem are and then to begin developing ways to manage them, if they are insoluble? Could researchers working in and with the community find ways to make things work better even if the issues to be tackled derive from deep seated cultural and social problems?

The next section describes how the University’s research centre at Hastings collaborated with local parents to pilot a research project which tries to find a way to more clearly identify what factors are affecting the ways in which parents of young children engage with learning activities both for their children and for themselves.

Using Children’s Centres: a CRRC pilot project

The members of the Ore Valley Forum and the Learning and Skills Research Group, supported by CRRC, were keen to support a project that turned its attention to the ways in which young children and their families were encouraged to engage in educational and social opportunities to support their children’s learning. It was set up to develop and pilot an appropriate methodology to examine parents’ engagement with children’s centres in Hastings, funded by the Ore Valley Forum and the Children’s Centres, Hastings. The project builds upon existing programmes of research at the Coastal Regeneration Research Centre (CRRC) recently completed (HEFCE, 2010, Ore Valley Forum Project, 2009). The researchers from these programmes established that educational interventions are affecting a change in the achievement of young people but it was not possible to attribute any one intervention directly to this success. The research also showed that young people who have poor experiences of school and few qualifications can be drawn back into formal education. Given that educational regeneration is affecting other groups as well as young people the current study was set up to examine how educational regeneration is affecting parents and families with young children.

The pilot project explored the relationship between parental involvement in children’s centres and sustainability of learning activities within the home and nearby environment. The project team was particularly interested in identifying if parents acquire knowledge and skills in their children’s development and education which affects their own involvement in educational activities.

7

Overall, the project sought to establish:

The volume of involvement of parents in children’s centres The activities undertaken The activities that parents continue to use in the home and further afield Any learning (eg about children’s development) that has helped them with

their parenting Any engagement with learning as adults (eg with Horizons, an adult and

community learning provider, but also in informal learning opportunities) Personal experiences of education, childhood and play, including access to

own garden or other facilities

It involved local partners in the research and drew upon the Turning Point Connected Education project (2011) funded by East Sussex County Council (ESCC). Here, parents were recruited to undertake interviews with parents of young people in secondary schools in Hastings and Eastbourne. The Turning Point project (East Sussex Connected Education, Report May 2011) outlines the principle of Connected Education which is

an innovative and unique form of action research using parents and young people as peer researchers. It enables parents and young people directly to define and influence the development of school policy and practice. By engaging parents as researchers, Connected Education is able to reach those parents most in need and least engaged with schools and the learning process. Connected Education begins a process of raising parental esteem through the modelling of positive behaviours and the valuing of parents as experts (Turning Point, 2011:1)

The CRRC project team adapted the original Turning Point methodology by working with parent volunteers from East Hastings Children’s Centre who received training to undertake research interviews based upon a questionnaire with local parents. Two parent researchers from the Turning Point project trained this new group of parent researchers and led the research interviews.

Specifically, the CRRC project aimed to identify

What aspirations parents hold for their children and to what extent are these influenced by their own life experiences

How children centres can capitalise on the willingness of parents both to support their children and their children’s centre

How children centres can minimise the barriers faced by some parents in engaging with their children’s learning

How children centres can reach parents whose children need the most support

How children centres can facilitate positive parent/child interaction

8

Who in children centres and the wider community can make a difference to parental involvement

Working with parent researchers

The research comprised interviews with local parents undertaken by pairs of parent researchers and a focus group which teased out emerging themes arising from the interviews. The interviews used a questionnaire with open ended questions modelled on the Turning Point Connected Education project but adapted to address the research questions identified above. A number of prompts were created using examples of activities and logos currently in use in the Hastings children centres.The questionnaires were subsequently analysed through a simple coding process. This was then shared with the project team to identify emerging themes which formed the activities in the focus group.

Parent researchers attended two days training which involved interactive workshop activities to provide background information about the project, the activities undertaken in the children’s centres in Hastings as well as interview techniques and how to refer participants to further support and advice where appropriate.

Every 10th parent on roll (from the past 5 years) was invited to participate, numbering 37 in total. (There were 354 parents registered in the centre, and parents stay on the register until their youngest child reaches the age of five). The parents were sent a leaflet explaining the project and this was followed up by a telephone call from the children’s centre. Although initially nine parents responded, it proved difficult to interview them. This was partly due to problems in matching availability of parent researchers with parents but also in finding appropriate child care. There were a number of occasions when parents did not turn up for the arranged interviews. A further factor affecting recruitment from the original sample was the length of time taken to organise the training for the parent researchers. By the time the project team did contact parents, a large proportion of the original sample group had moved away from the catchment area.

As a consequence of these issues, the project team decided to make use of existing occasions when parents were either using the children’s centre or latterly, when activities scheduled for the summer holidays were taking place. Going to where parents already were engaged in a children’s centre activity proved to be far more successful in recruiting parents. In the end, a total of 17 interviews were conducted. This represents 5% of the total parents on roll. Unfortunately, participants did not match the profile identified from the original 10% sample from the centre’s roll, for example, all participants were female. However, of the 17 interviewed, there was one respondent who did not make any use of children’s centres activities and a small number who made limited use.

9

The focus group tested out the emerging themes from the interviews with individual parents. Although nine parents out of the 17 parents interviewed had indicated they were willing to participate in the focus group, none could attend the focus group. It was decided to return to one of the children centre activities, In2play, to recruit parents. For some reason, on the day chosen, there were only three parents at the In2play group. The research team decided to go ahead and speak with two parents, both of whom had participated in the earlier interviews.

The focus group used statements drawn from the interview data and asked participants to discuss why people are reluctant to come to children centres, what children’s centres could do to encourage parents to participate and what the participants would do if there was no children’s centre. They were questioned about their own learning and if they felt they would expect to undertake formal learning in the future, again asking what puts people off and what helps them become engaged in learning.

All respondents were given a £10 voucher for participating in the interviews or focus group.

Experiences of the children’s centres

Parents had between up to six years or more experience of the centres and only one respondent had not used them at all. There was good recognition of the activities for children on offer by the centres but the use of these was often more restricted to those at the local centre (with some notable exceptions). There was more limited use of activities for parents but again, good knowledge of what was on offer. The most used service for adults was Citizens’ Advice (five parents) and Horizons Community Learning (five parents). A variety of sources of information including word of mouth, text messaging and printed material were cited. However, the main communication tool that parents both use and prefer to use is mobile phones, particularly texts and then through the internet, facebook and email. All respondents had mobile phones and 16 had internet access at home. All used facebook and to a much lesser extent, twitter.

Parents undertake a variety of activities with their young children ranging from reading, cooking, drawing, and television through to going to the park, beach and swimming. There was a clear indication that lack of money prevented them from certain activities (eg visits to the zoo) and health and safety rules affecting swimming (in centres where there can only be one adult per child under four which is a problem for parents with more than one child of this age). Transport was a factor in not undertaking certain activities for parents with very young children or infants.

Parents drew upon their family and their own instincts to influence their parenting. Respondents also drew upon parents and family when helping prepare young

10

children for school. This suggests that the respondents are confident in their parenting and generally do not feel the need to draw upon professional help. Many of the parents interviewed had school age children and therefore had experience of transition from pre-school to compulsory schooling. Where respondents were only with pre-school children were they not ready to think about this yet.

A major theme emerging from the questionnaire centred around respondents’ experiences of growing up and the differences they perceived their children were experiencing. All stated that they had played outside more freely then their children. Their own children did not do so because there were more structured activities for them than the parents had experienced, the influence of television and technology, and concerns about safety. The locus of control that parents appear to have over their children is often contradicted by an apparent sense of acceptance of inability to take action. Despite worrying about safety and the internet, to some extent the use of too much television, for example, is within their control.

Some of the respondents had undertaken learning activities since leaving school, mainly in relation to occupations – NVQs were cited as the main qualification gained. Their reasons for not participating in learning were mainly due to having young children or lack of childcare. When asked about their own experiences at school and hopes and aspirations, there was a strong wish to have stayed on at school or to have gained qualifications. Parents appeared to have limited aspirations whilst their children were young and this provides another avenue of exploration that further research could examine.

Emerging themes

Emerging themes were tested through the proposed focus group. These included:

Limited horizons and aspirations Own lives ‘on hold’ Self reliance and influence of close family and friends ‘ Being settled’ – locality, futures, own horizons Evidence of influence of health and safety rules eg swimming and CRB Strong theme of less freedom More structure and opportunity today Prevalence of mobile and internet General good knowledge of activities – much more limited use of them

Overall, the focus group helped to reinforce the emerging themes from the interviews. It has provided an insight into the importance of the activities for parents needing structured weekly timetables to help develop their parenting skills. A clear message emerged that children’s centres provide a valuable contribution and that parents would really miss them if they were closed down. As one parent noted

11

‘I would be lost without them – I’d sit indoors bored all day’.

There are other factors, though, which stand in the way of this provision. Local residents perceive the centres as only being for ‘problem families’ and at the same time, the professionals who work there are perceived by some as intimidating or, as one respondent noted,

‘professionals are too nosey’.

A Disconnect?

‘We know now that it’s not a myth that it is hard to engage parents in East Hastings ‘ (Area Co-ordinator for Hastings and St Leonard’s Children’s Centres)

An underlying metaphor for the project is the disconnect that is experienced in numerous ways. Parents do not engage fully with the number of activities on offer at the Children’s Centres, even if they know about them. Parents do have aspirations for their children but they do not necessarily take steps to help them achieve, again, as seen by the limited engagement with activities for their children and for themselves as parents. Parents are aware of the dangers, for example, in their children independently playing away from home, crossing the street or using the internet, yet they do not seem to understand how much responsibility and agency they possess in this issue. A discussion in the focus group with one parent centred on how she instructs her child not to cross the street even though she knows he does, and at the same time acknowledges that when she was that age, she did all sorts of things she wouldn’t tell her parents about! Perhaps helping her child understand how to cross the street would be a different strategy. Would the Children’s Centre be able to foster such notions of responsibility and agency and if so, what would be effective approaches that engage without instilling even more sense of suspicion and disconnect? Could the Children’s Centres begin to challenge parents more, in ways they already do in their parenting classes where they ask what stops parents from doing certain things or what action they can take to change a situation.

Issues in working with parents as researchers

The pilot project provided numerous insights into the ways that local parents make use of, and perceive the value of children’s centres. It achieved this through the eyes and ears of local parents. The value of this approach needs to be considered in the context of the resources used to support the project and the difficulties in reaching local people, as this section discusses.

The experience of recruiting parents to engage in this type of research has led the project team to identify important lessons for future work (as set out in the conclusion

12

below). The major factor affecting recruitment of participants related to data protection issues. The project team could only access parents who had been approached through the children centre staff. The role of the administrator in this respect was critical. Given that children centres are not a statutory service, it was even more important that the project team could gain access to parents through the centre.

Locating parent participants where they are already involved in activities is a helpful way to approach people but finding those who are not engaged with children centre activities is still a challenge. Any future research must give take account of the reluctance of families to participate. Even with vouchers as an incentive, it is hard to encourage people to engage in the research. There is a high attrition rate between contacting potential respondents and those who actually turn up on the day.

Given the almost universal use of mobiles and internet, there may be alternative means to engage parents in future research and a strong recommendation from this research would be to explore social networking as a mechanism to conduct the research.

The pilot project has benefitted both the parent researchers and the Children’s Centre. Whilst the project was underway, one member of the parent researcher team applied successfully for a community role within the children’s centre. The decision to apply was influenced by the confidence she had gained from being a parent researcher in the project. The parent researchers gave evidence to an Ofsted in November 2011 and their involvement was favourably received by the inspectors (the work of the Children’s Centres received an outstanding assessment in the report in December 2011).

However, this success must be examined within the wider perspective of the relationship between the CRRC, CUPP and the University and the local community partners. The final section notes the challenges that continue to confront this partnership.

Challenges for Community-University Partnerships

CUPP has evolved since its ‘golden hello’ (Hart, 2007:196) to becoming self- sustaining. There are a number of challenges to be managed including how to demonstrate impact of its work and how to continue in a climate of funding constraint. Today, where the economic constraints are even tighter and the need is even more pressing for community members seeking research and development support to help them tackle the ‘wicked problems’ of many of their peers, we need to identify where there are successes and learn to draw upon these.

We outlined above, the practicalities of working with people in their communities requires resourcing and commitment, not just from members within the university who have a role in undertaking research and building capacity amongst staff and

13

students. Gatekeepers wield considerable influence on the success of any project. It is often the good will of very busy practitioners who have no responsibility towards the university or its partnership programmes that distinguishes projects that can be successfully undertaken and those that do not even get off the ground. Key people are not always those with high levels of management or leadership responsibility but those who are able to act as facilitators of access and communication.

Such projects depend upon the willingness of all those involved to devote more hours than originally specified within a project. Where projects work with local people, it is important not to exploit their good will and this holds true for staff in both university and local authority employment. People who work in the public sector are particularly vulnerable to devoting time and energy to projects beyond their original scope. Many higher education institutions offer accreditation for activities located in the workplace or community and these could be offered to offset ‘gift time’ of community partners. However university partners should not to assume that participants of collaborative projects will necessarily want what the university expects to offer, ie accreditation for their involvement.

Building social and relational capital

We can conceptualise the evolving relationship between university and its communities through the lens of social capital. Here, wealth held by individuals is not seen in terms of money or goods, but in terms of what people know about living in the world. Implicit in this notion of social capital is the existence of moral obligations, norms and social values and trust. Yet within communities there are some groups which share a larger portion of social capital, wield more power and direct the value of norms which affect other groups. Jackson (2010) has developed the concept of social capital by suggesting that ‘relational capital’ will help understand us how we live our lives in the local/globalised work of today. Relational capital

enables the accumulation of collective stocks of understandings that arise from the relational understandings of and between …different voices, histories and memories (Jackson, 2010:250)

In other words, we need to move away from working in communities of folk ‘just like us’ and foster communities where we developed shared understandings and knowledge, which take account of the differing perspectives and make use of these. This new focus on relational capital may help sustain the work of community and university partnerships.

Into the future?

The partnership relationships within the university and its community are dependent on the people who are involved in them. As such relationships take time to build, there is no guarantee that people who become involved at the early stages of any initiative will be still there in subsequent months. This issue is particularly pressing

14

currently in Hastings, where the local authority is restructuring, the local college has shed a number of staff at senior management level all who previously had been members of the Learning and Skills Research Group and who could provide insights into appropriate avenues for research and collaboration. Building relationships and managing expectations at such fluid times continues to affect the partnerships that have emerged since the university first began its work at Hastings. Yet the current relationship between CRRC, supported through CUPP and the University in Brighton in Hastings is proving to be sustainable despite the changes in membership within the community as organisations are disbanded, individuals made redundant or have to seek employment elsewhere. The issues that the community engagement process needs to tackle are more relevant and more pressing than ever. The small scale successes of the research project outlined in this paper will not resolve such issues but they ensure that steps can be taken to help members work actively together, to generate knowledge and stimulate appropriate action in the community. Such steps continue to represent the communities of practice that CUPP was set up to foster.

15

References

Balloch, S and Taylor, M (Eds) (2001) Partnership Working: Policy and PracticeBristol: Policy Press

Barrett, SM and Fudge C (eds) (1981) Policy and Action: Essays on the Implementation of Public Policy. London: Methuen (pp.3-34)

Bourdieu, M (1977) Outline of a theory of practice Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Bourdieu, M (1993) The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and LiteratureNew York: Columbia University Press

Church, A., Hillier, Y, Hyde, S, Robinson, C and Watson, J Communities and Widening Participation Research Report to HEFCE January 2010, University of Brighton http://www.hefce.ac.uk/widen/strategy/comm.htm. (August 2010)

Dewey, J (1927) How we think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking in the Educative Process Chicago: Henry Regnery

Fischer, F and Forrester, J (1993) The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning Durham, NC, USA: Duke University Press

Habermas, J (1989) The structural transformation of the public sphere: an inquiry in the category of the bourgeois society Oxford: Polity

Hart, A, Maddison, E and Wolff, D (eds) (2007) Community-University Partnerships in Practice Leicester: NIACE

Hodgson, A., Spours, K., Coffield, F., Steer, R, Finlay, I and Gregson, M. (2005) A new learning and skills landscape? The LSC within the learning and skills sector Research Report1 available at www.ioe.ac.uk/tlrp/lss

Hodgson, A,Edward, S and Gregson, M (2007) Riding the waves of policy? The case of basic skills in adult and community learning in England Journal of Vocational Education and Training 56(2) pp213-229

Hoppe, R, (2010) The Governance of Problems Bristol: Policy Press

Jackson, S (2010) Learning through social spaces: migrant women and lifelong learning in post-colonial London International Journal of Lifelong Education 29 (2) 237-54

Kooiman, J (2003) Governing as governance London: Sage

16

Laing, S and Maddison, E (2007) The CUPP model in Context in Angie Hart, Elizabeth Maddison and David Wolff (eds) Community-University Partnerships in Practice Leicester: NIACE pp 8-20

Lo Bianco, J and Freebody, P (1997) Australian Literacies: Informing national policy on literacy education Melbourne: National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia

Newman, J (2001) Modernising governance: New Labour, policy and societyLondon: Sage

Ozga, J., (2001) Policy Research in Educational Settings: contested terrainBuckingham: Open University Press

Parsons, W., (1995) Public Policy: an introduction to the Theory and Practice of Policy Analysis Aldershot: Edward Elgar

Saunders, D, Payne, R and Davies, L (2007) Partnership working via community consortia: a higher education perspective Journal of Adult and Continuing Education 13 (1) pp88 - 100

Steer, R, Spours, K, Hodgson, A, Finlay, I, Coffield, F, Edward, S and Gregson, M (2007) ‘Modernisation’ and the role of policy levers in the learning and skills sector Journal of Vocational Education 56(2)

Turning Point (2010) Connected Education in East Sussex London: Turning Point

University of Brighton (2002) Proposal to the Atlantic Philanthropies unpublished

Universities UK (2007) Universities: engaging with local communitieshttp://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/publications/pages/publications-262.aspx

Webb, S (2011) Community engagement and the idea of the ‘good’ university in Sue Jackson (ed) (2011) Lifelong Learning and Social Justice: Communites, Work and Identities in a Globalised World Leicester: NIACE pp 82-100

17

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the members of the Children’s Centre research project, CUPP, the Learning and Skills Research Group and the Ore Valley Forum for their support for this work. A particular thanks to Ron Bennett for his ongoing support and insights for the community research partnerships that have taken place over the past four years.