ASB Awareness Week ends on Sunday with Community Action Day, and a key part of our work with tenants and communities is our Anti-Social Behaviour Service Improvement Group, which consists of tenants and residents from our wider communities.
This week we held a special meeting with the group, to which we invited a guest speaker from Manchester City Council to talk through Manchester’s ‘Building Stronger Communities Together’ strategy.
The talk was both engaging and inspiring and created an interesting group discussion. The group picked up on the following themes that we can adopt in our work in neighbourhoods and in the prevention of ASB.
- Welcoming new people into our neighbourhoods and embracing differences
- Existing communities feeling comfortable to engage with newcomers
- Residents feeling able to challenge poor behaviour
- There is good in our communities that is not recognise. We should celebrate and support the good work being done by residents, community groups and volunteers to create welcoming and comfortable communities
You can find more details on the Building Stronger Communities Together strategy HERE.
We also talked about serious issues that affect some of our neighbourhoods, including knife crime and the need for diversionary activities to positively engage with at risk younger people.
Finally, the group were advised of grant funding that will be available to support community groups, around Social Cohesion and Hate Crime.
The Hate Crime grants are currently available, so if any groups working with Southway tenants and residents are interested in working on a grant application, please contact Jeremy Duncan via j.duncan@southway.
If you are interested in joining the ASB Service Improvement Group, please contact Maureen Ward via m.ward@southwayhousing.co.uk.
If you would prefer to speak to Jeremy or Maureen, please ring on 0161 448 4200.