Looking into the Future
Some existing interventions will continue to be delivered into year 5 e.g. Social Inclusion Project, Service Development, Environmental Health Officer for NM area, although the main emphasis in the of the pathfinder will be on ensuring sustainability of existing interventions, and succession planning for the future.
In terms of mainstreaming, many initiatives have already been sustained, for example the nurture group at St Clements School will be continuing this year without the aid of NM funding, and Safe and Clean Service will continue, with part funding from the Local Authority. We are confident that the pupil family support worker will become a permanent feature funded within schools budgets, and the local authority has given a general commitment to sustaining a warden service.

The focuses for NM last year included looking at our employment theme and developing ideas to aid vulnerable adults into employment. This is now happening with the Employment Outreach worker, funded jointly by NM, SRB and Job Centre Plus, who will engage with at least 100 people and move them into or closer to work. However, we have really only begun to tackle this issue and hope to develop many new ideas this year. In particular we are keen to ensure that we target employment, volunteering and other recreational opportunities to people in recovery from addictions.

Following discussions within our Health and Education Group, our two local secondary schools hope to implement a scheme called “Restorative Justice”. This is a way of tackling difficult behaviour in a constructive way. Experience from elsewhere shows this can radically improve how people behave towards each other and can reduce school exclusions and truancy.

Identifying where services need to change the use of leverage funding is only one element and we will continue to encourage service changes that do not require NM resources. The development of Service Level Agreements will be a key mechanism for delivering this area of work.

We are now better resourced, in terms of staffing, to be able to monitor the effect and impact of our existing interventions and along with our local evaluation team will be learning and disseminating the learning from our interventions in future years.

We are also confident that we have a robust baseline in place and clear targets that can be tracked in the following years.

During year 4 and 5 we will be focussing on our succession strategy, meaning how the NM approach can be sustained after NRU funding runs out in 2009. We want to maintain the way of working and ensure that our successful initiatives continue locally and are rolled out to other areas.

We will be explore models of community development trusts and link in with ongoing discussions in the local authority about local service delivery and decision-making. We will involve SRB and Healthy Living Centre in these discussions, as it is important that their successes are also sustained.

In summary we will move from the early years of set up, research and development (years 1 and 2) into delivery (years 2, 3 and 4) and then on to learning and applying lessons and securing a future for the approach (year 4 onwards).

Some of the other work, which is planned for Year 4, includes:

• Planning - We will work with Planning to influence the “Statement of Community Involvement” which will set out how the Council involves communities in planning decisions and planning policies. Following on from that we will endeavour to ensure that the new Planning policies reflect local needs.
• Youth - Building on the success of last years Radio Kidz (summer radio project) we will use this years youth radio station to find out what young people themselves want from their area and services. What young people say through the four weeks of programmes, phone ins and events will influence the areas youth strategy.
• Housing - We aim to further reduce eyesores (to 298) and disrepairs (to 102)
• A newly appointed Environmental Health Officer will focus his efforts on the NM area, ensuring compliance with all standards and taking enforcement action when necessary.
• Springbourne in Bloom is being extended to Boscombe in Bloom, with displays planned throughout the area and young people in schools heavily involved in planting.
• Environment - Plans for a small play area in The Crescent and further upgrading of Churchill Gardens are in hand.
• Community Safety - We expect to see and will work towards further reductions of at least 5% in the following crimes - burglary, robbery, vehicle crime and violent crime.
• Marketing the area - While tackling the problems of the area we continue to sell the good points – ensuring positive press coverage, producing marketing material and celebrating success.
• Elections -This year again sees elections to four of our resident Board member posts. We hope to have many candidates putting themselves forward and a high turnout.
• Springbourne Library - The old reading room will be brought back into use as a community space, linked to but independent from the library.