We recently developed a social integration strategy because we want to put people at the heart of everything we do and create a fair and socially inclusive
borough, break down barriers and inequalities faced by our residents for a rich and connected community
How do you measure the impact of social integration as a council or indeed any organisation serving its community?
The Greater London Authority measures are quantitative, a mixture of objective and self-reported, and provide additional value when benchmarked.
There are 40 indicators across 30 measurement themes compiled by the GLA across four domains.
We are exploring what current data we have to measure social integration. The slideshow shows our current state of play when it comes to data on social integration and improvements we are making.
As part of this, in this blog post, I feature case studies to bring to life how our services and partners work together to achieve social integration outcomes
While the case studies represent real situations that our services deal with, they aren’t of any one individual experience.
1. Relationships
The Youth Empowerment Service (YES) offers a wide variety of youth-centred approaches to improving the social connectedness and well-being of young people in the borough. The case study below is drawn from cases which highlight how the service improves social integration in terms of social isolation, loneliness, sense of wellbeing, and participation in leisure activities.
A father and young person aged 12 years old seeking asylum from a war-torn country make contact with us looking for positive social activities for the young person, as they have not long arrived in the country and were hoping to find a safe space for him to play, learn, interact with other young people and make friends.
The young person does not know anyone but can speak English enough to understand and communicate with others. He was eager to get involved in anything we have available. Initial contact was made during the lockdown, so he was engaged through online sessions, and was then invited to volunteer through a council initiative to help those in need during the lockdown, which he jumped at the chance to do.
Through volunteering, he was able to meet some of the other young people who attend the centre and online sessions to begin familiarising himself and build confidence to interact and talk. During this time, we were also in consistent contact with his father to offer our support to his son and himself, for which they are very grateful.
Once restrictions were lifted and we were able to return to the Youth Centre our young person began attending regularly and was able to start making connections with his peer group and get involved in various activities he is interested in, learning how to interact and adapt to the different culture and way of living.
In the meantime, his father asked us to assist with the eligibility process to stay permanently which would also help them find secure accommodation, and allow the father to work. We happily provide a letter of recommendation and continue to support the wellbeing and social integration of the young person.
2. Equality
Our Newham Money offers support to Newham residents who may be struggling with debt or the everyday cost of living. The case study below is drawn from cases that highlight how the service improves social integration in terms of financial wellbeing and personal wellbeing.
Our Newham Money, Learning Disabilities team (Adults and Health) and Client affairs worked together to assist the following resident.
He was a young man in his early 20s who was referred to Our Newham Money via the learning disabilities team. His mum, who works in a care setting, unfortunately, contracted Covid19 and subsequently passed away. This left him to in a situation where he needed to manage the household bills and he had become responsible for this younger brother. Over multiple conversations and working with client affairs and the officer from the Learning Disability Team we supported them to ensure he made applications for all of the correct benefits, child benefit, guardians allowance, Universal Credit, support them to complete a household budgeting to start learning how to manage the money and pay for household bills. In addition to this, we also supported him to make an application for the government life assurance scheme.
As a result of this he and his brother manage to receive the correct entitlement to benefits, their tenancy agreement was transferred and arrears clears and they received 60k from the government scheme. Having spoken to the resident recently Our Newham Money can confirm that they are coping amazing well given the situation and he has recently returned to employment.
Our Newham Money offers support to Newham residents who may be struggling with debt or the everyday cost of living. The case study below is drawn from cases that highlight how the service improves social integration in terms of financial wellbeing and personal wellbeing.
Our Newham Money, Enabled Living Team and Council tax worked collaboratively to assist the following residents. The Enabled Living Team referred a deaf male who communicates via British Sign Language and has limited writing ability to Our Newham Money.
The resident’s job had changed and he needed support to understand his revises benefits entitlement and in addition, he had accumulated rent arrears and council tax arrears. He also required support managing money as he had three bank accounts and no control over what money he had or when payments were due.
As this was during the pandemic several meetings via zoom were put in place for the resident with Our Newham Money, enabled living team and a British sign language signer. Contact was made with the landlord to confirm and agree on payment arrangement and a new arrangement was made with council tax. Our Newham Money completed a financial statement and supported the resident to organise all bills and outgoings, expenditure and savings account. The resident is now able to manage his financial situation and understand what disposable income he has after regular expenditure.
Our Newham Money offers support to Newham residents who may be struggling with debt or the everyday cost of living. The case study below is drawn from cases that highlight how the service improves social integration in terms of financial wellbeing, children’s education and personal wellbeing.
Our Newham Money, Housing Benefit and Council tax department worked collaboratively to assist the following resident.
A male resident with long-term mental health issues was referred to Our Newham Money by the housing benefit team for support with Personal Independence Payment, (PIP) and council tax arrears.
The resident was supported with their PIP application, and an appeal where the outcome was successful with the client receiving an additional £60 per week and £1900 backdated.
In addition, Our Newham Money supported the resident to apply for SMI (severe mental impairment) for council tax and a follow-up conversation was put in place to discuss all communication with GP. The outcome included SMI being awarded and full council tax exemption including backdate.
Our Newham Money offers support to Newham residents who may be struggling with debt or the everyday cost of living. The case study below is drawn from cases that highlight how the service improves social integration in terms of financial wellbeing, children’s education and personal wellbeing.
Our Newham Money and Newham Housing worked collaboratively to support a black African, lone parent with two children, working part-time (16–25 hours per week).
The resident was approached by Newham Housing following a fire in the block where they were a resident. A Housing Liaison Officer requested a full pack of support for the resident and referred the resident to Our Newham Money.
Our Newham Money assisted the resident with an emergency support application. The resident’s relatives were able to help with a limited amount of food and clothing. Our Newham Money awarded the resident a £200.00 supermarket voucher and a £220.00 clothing voucher to help towards the cost of School uniforms so that the children could continue to attend school in uniform.
Our Newham Money offers support to Newham residents who may be struggling with debt or the everyday cost of living. The case study below is drawn from cases that highlight how the service improves social integration in terms of financial wellbeing and personal wellbeing.
Our Newham Money’s emergency support team worked collaboratively with Debt, Benefits, and Our Newham Works to assist the following resident.
The resident was a British Caribbean woman, with eight children and a partner.
The resident was moved into Newham by another borough as a result of her son being attacked and repeated approached by a gang. The women’s partner lost his job due to Covid19, and therefore the essential household bills accumulated and in addition, her partner was detained to be deported whilst she was pregnant with their eighth child.
Our Newham Money working with this family to assist with money management, emergency support and priority and non-priority debts. A re-payment plan for debt was put in place and a suggested budget devised, parking tickets were sorted out and the service worked with the resident to ensure they were receiving the correct benefit entitlement. Our Newham Money referred the eldest son to Our Newham Work so that he could find an apprentice placement.
It was close to Christmas and the family had no funds to enable the children to celebrate Christmas, Our Newham Money made an application to the toy appeal for all eight children. Three large sacks full of gifts, two bags of clothes and one bag of food and toiletries were delivered to the family by the toy appeal charity.
3. Outcomes
Our Newham Learning & Skills worked collaboratively with the East London NHS Foundation Trust in delivering a 10-week workshop called ‘Write to Recover’. The partnership between Our Newham Learning & Skills and East London NHS Foundation Trust focussed on social integration and upskilling residents, giving them access to an educational provision in English/Maths and other areas while simultaneously improving life skills.
This programme ran at Priory Park Centre in East Ham between May and July 2021 and allowed participants to express themselves fully by techniques including timed writing and exploring poetic ways of writing.
A resident, who was originally from India but has lived in the UK for over 30 years, accessed this course and in reflecting via writing improved his self-esteem and confidence and felt more ready to integrate into society and felt motivated enough to either access more training courses or felt more work-ready. Social integration is therefore improved in terms of personal wellbeing.
4. Participation
The Youth Empowerment Service (YES) offers a wide variety of youth-centred approaches to improving the social connectedness and well-being of young people in the borough. The case study below is drawn from cases that highlight how the service improves social integration in terms of participation in leisure activities, social mixing with diverse groups, social isolation, loneliness and sense of wellbeing.
A young person arrived from another country with their family at the age of 13. The young person is the second eldest of 4 who recently lost their father and were not enjoying living in the UK at all. They were attending school but didn’t have a lot of positive connections and wanted to return to their home country. The mother received an email regarding the Easter half term timetable in April which advertised that there were sessions running in the centre under the Youth Empowerment Service.
The mother contacted a worker and inquired about her daughter attending the centre which she then did. The young person was at first very shy and reserved, but through regular attendance to the sessions, they then started to integrate into other sessions and make healthy friendships and engage in a wide range of positive activities.
The young person started to build relationships and start talking to staff about herself, her interests and things within the family. The young person mentioned that they enjoy attending sessions and feel that attending the entre has helped her enjoy the UK a lot more.
After 2 months of engaging with the youth service, the parent then contacted a worker and mentioned that their child was engaging in school a lot more, enjoying living in the UK and encouraged their siblings to come along. The parent was very appreciative of the support that her children are receiving and has seen a change in their attitudes towards living in the UK. Over the past 5 months, not only has the young person developed their engagement in the centre, but the young person also attends other activities outside the centre and continues to build positive relationships in the borough.
