Sure Start Community Development LB Haringey

As a long-term piece of work WSA Community Consultants undertook a range of community development work for Sure Start in Haringey.

This included working with the three new Round 5 programmes in ensuring that community development and participation were key elements of their establishment.

The three programmes Noel Park, Park Lane and High Cross each had community development consultants from WSA Community Consultants working with them to involve local parents as members of the parents forums, as members of the wider partnership boards and as project and community group leaders on a range of projects.

Some of the achievements within this work were:

  • A number of parents working with the Sure Start programmes as volunteers. Click here to read the experience of one parent, who went from volunteer to Outreach worker.
  • The establishment of 4 parents forums.
  • The establishment of a drop in for fathers and male carers
  • The establishment of a drop in for Turkish and Kurdish parents working with a steering group of parents. Click here to see an interview with Salime, one of the parents involved (you need Adobe Reader to read this - please click here to download) and some photos of the session (click here to see the photos).
  • The re-establishment of a drop in for Albanian and Kosovan parents and children
  • A large number of open large scale community events giving advice and information on a range of issues including health, childcare and general Sure Start activities
  • Pilot of a community chest small grants scheme across five of the Sure Start programme allocating £130k in funding to a range of community groups
  • A review of one of the partnership boards with recommendations for future development

In addition to this work WSA Community Consultants was also involved in a large scale community consultation for a Round 6 Sure Start programme at the point of the development and submission of the Delivery Plan to the Sure Start Unit. In undertaking this work we involved a number of parents from other areas who were trained in participatory appraisal and wanted the opportunity to utilise further the skills they had developed through this training.