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Creating Community Cohesion: The Power of Using Innovative Methods to Facilitate Engagement and Genuine Partnership

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2011

Carolyn Kagan  and
Karen Duggan
Carolyn Kagan
Affiliation:
Research Institute for Health and Social Change, Manchester Metropolitan University E-mail: c.kagan@mmu.ac.uk
Karen Duggan
Affiliation:
Research Institute for Health and Social Change, Manchester Metropolitan University E-mail: c.kagan@mmu.ac.uk
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Abstract

National policies implemented at local level require marginalised community groups to work with public sector agencies and professionals. It can be a significant challenge to work across these boundaries. This article explores how creative and visual methods can be used to support people from so-called ‘hard-to-reach’ groups to articulate complex thoughts and ideas, and communicate their experience of living in their communities. Examples are drawn from the authors’ recent work in the north of England on regeneration and social cohesion, in which university staff collaborated on separate projects in partnership with – and driven by – community groups.

Type
Themed Section on Remixing the Economy of Welfare? Changing Roles and Relationships between the State and the Voluntary and Community Sector
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 393 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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