Conversations in Hartlepool 1 Contents and themes Introduction: pages 3 - 5 Methodology: page 6 Sample size and composition: pages 7 - 9 Data overview of Hartlepool: pages 10 - 11 The natural and built environment: pages 12 - 13 Transport and traffic: pages 14 - 15 Jobs and the economy: pages 16 - 17 Education, schools and children and young people: pages 18 - 19 Leisure and culture: pages 20 - 21 Health: pages 22 - 24 Accessibility of services: pages 25 - 26 Housing: pages 27 - 29 Community: pages 30 - 31 Community and voluntary services: pages 32 - 33 Community safety: page 34 Governance: page 35 - 36 Where next?: page 37 Appendix: pages 38 - 40 Page | 2 Introduction The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) is an independent organisation working to inspire social change through research, policy and practice. JRF has a presence in Hartlepool through its partner organisation – the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust – at Hartfields, a retirement community with extra care provision. Building on its existing presence, JRF began discussions in 2015 with organisations and people from Hartlepool to better understand the challenges people in the town face. Following these discussions, JRF will host the Hartlepool Action Lab in June 2016. The Action Lab will support a collaborative approach to identifying key challenges important to people who live in Hartlepool and seek to make positive change through collective action. JRF believes that people from Hartlepool have the best solutions to the challenges they face and that other agencies can learn directly from peoples’ lived experience. JRF provided training for members of the local community to learn Participatory Learning and Action techniques (Appendix: 1). These community researchers, used the research techniques to find out about what is important to people who live in Hartlepool. This report presents the findings of the research sessions. The community researchers all of whom live and work in Hartlepool, were asked to participate because of their connection to the town and willingness to take part. This work has only been possible through the commitment and contributions of these community researchers. Researchers gave their time, worked through their networks, and contributed their unique insights to this work. Credit is due to the following people: Ann Callaghan, Hartlepool Borough Council Callum Murphy, The Wharton Trust Gilbert Navonika, Joseph Rowntree Foundation Ian Cawley, The Heart Centre Irene Cross, Hartlepool Borough Council Janet Phillips Jonathan Peter Gibson, Joseph Rowntree Foundation Juli Simons, The Heart Centre Kimberly Weir, Asylum Seekers and Refugees Group Page | 3 Kesavan Sivanesan, Asylum Seekers and Refugees Group Lisa Oldroyd, Hartlepool Borough Council Lorraine Wilson, Asylum Seekers and Refugees Group Malcolm Walker, Joseph Rowntree Foundation Mary Diver, Generic Advocacy Training and Consultancy Service Marnie Hughes, Consultant Michelle Ellett, North Hartlepool Family of Schools / Extended Services in North Hartlepool Nikki Stainsby, The Wharton Trust Peter Robinson, Extended Services in North Hartlepool Paul Hyde, Consultant Peter Gowland, Men’s Shed / Hartlepower Roger Newton, 3Ps Consultancy Sacha Bedding, The Wharton Trust Sarah Lewis, Hart GABLES Stuart Drummond, New Deal for Communities Trust Tara Davison, Hartlepool Borough Council Teresa Driver, The Wharton Trust Tracy Rowe, Hartlepool Borough Council “I thought it was a positive sight to see so many representatives from organisations across the town of Hartlepool keen to participate in the community research.” Community researcher "The community researchers are a rare group of people. All are very passionate about their town with much loyalty, affection and a lovely brand of local humour. They really wanted to 'dig a bit deeper' in this research, and could do this because they are trusted local experts. They gave access to groups of people whose voices are rarely heard and skilfully guided conversations into some difficult topic areas. I think that the result is uniquely powerful and offers a fascinating insight into the thoughts of the people of the town." Facilitator Community researchers’ comments and reflections on research findings have been included throughout this report. While this opportunity was offered to all community researchers, not all wanted to make comments. Page | 4 “The experience from going out and doing the questionnaires and speaking to people and being involved with the workshop has been a huge benefit to me. It has enabled me to get a job as a community organiser at the annexe. Going to speak to the homeless people was a massive eye opener to some of the things that I previously was oblivious to, and helped me see some of the struggles we don’t see in everyday life. I would just like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to do this.” Community researcher Page | 5 Methodology Our research questions were simple and open-ended. By asking broad questions, discussions were tailored to issues that were most important to the people researchers talked to. Starting points for discussions were: What are the best things about Hartlepool? What are the worst things about Hartlepool? What would be your ideas to improve Hartlepool? “The findings of this report provide a fascinating insight into people’s true perception of what they believe to be the positives and negatives of living in Hartlepool. This particular research basically asked; what do you think of Hartlepool?” Community researcher “The report highlights that within the population we collectively listened to there are a significant number of contradictions and it is clear people have different experiences of living in Hartlepool, depending upon their own circumstances. Whilst making it quite difficult to draw very strong conclusions it is still a good start.” Community researcher Page | 6 Sample size and composition In total, our researchers received 1,479 comments from 400 people. Types of comments made by respondents 586 477 401 Positive Negative Ideas Ages of people who made comments (not all ages were recorded) 205 133 126 120 95 104 73 79 0 to 9 10 to 19 20 to 29 30 to 39 40 to 49 50 to 59 60 to 69 70 to 89 Gender of people who made comments (not all were recorded) 719 390 Male Female 810 Ethnicities of people who made comments 585 40 1 5 32 6 White Pakistani Eastern European Chinese Bangladeshi Asian Not recorded “Overall eliciting the opinions of those who took part was not difficult. People were for the most part only too happy to comment.” Community researcher Page | 7 The majority of research sessions were conducted in community centres and places where community or voluntary services are usually provided. Research sessions were conducted between March and May 2016. The rationale for this was to talk to people in safe, trusted places where conversations could be had openly without disruption. Community researchers attended 27 research sessions, including at the following: Extended Services in North Hartlepool Children’s Group St Mark’s Drop-in Café One77 Hart Gables Grange Road Friendship Club Wharton Trust Youth Club The Artrium Stranton Seniors Rossmere Youth Club Asylum Seekers and Refugee Group Drop-in Blind Welfare Central Correctors Hartfields Lynnfield Ladies Group The Heart Centre 50+ Forum St Joseph’s Parish Hall Homeless Group Burbank Café Drop-in Salaam Centre (Women’s Group, age 30 and above; and Men’s Group) North East Athletic Group in Hartlepool “Using a new ‘active research’ tool, that explored the root causes of issues, helped to construct a new type of conversation. The research I was involved in was with people recovering from, or managing their mental ill health. The active research approach helped the conversation go beyond the usual ‘user led design of services’ and dig a bit deeper, looking at what lay below the main issues and what the solutions might be.” Community researcher Page | 8 A wide range of issues and ideas were expressed during research sessions. The community research team grouped comments into clear themes, shown in the contents page. Comments were summarised and included under theme headings, although speech marks reflect a direct quotation. The themes are not presented in order of importance or priority; however, comments within themes that appeared most frequently are mentioned first. The findings of the report are representative of the issues that were most important to the people community researchers talked to. Further community research may be undertaken to investigate specific issues or themes in more depth following the Hartlepool Action Lab. To make the report accessible to readers without knowledge of Hartlepool, explanations of colloquial references have been provided in brackets. “I found in doing the research that most people were very keen to join in. I think it could have been better if we never went to older people's lunch clubs because I felt like I was interrupting. As a young person I felt nervous when doing some research with other young people - I felt a bit 'daft' asking people near my age and felt much more comfortable with older people.” Community researcher Positive comments that stood out were: the cleanliness of the air (something that as a long-term resident I take for granted), with added comments that people suffered much less with breathing problems since moving to the area” Community researcher Page | 9 Some key facts about Hartlepool Population Hartlepool is a unitary authority in County Durham with a population of 92,600, of which 48% are male and 52% are female. The size of the population of Hartlepool is projected to increase by 2.1% by 2024, by which time 21.7% of the population will be over 65 years. 97.6% of people in Hartlepool are white or mixed-white. Employment, commuting and the local economy For every 100 working-age persons living in Hartlepool, the local economy provides 58 jobs. 9.4% of the working age population is unemployed, higher than regional (7.2%) and national (5.2%) averages.