Knowing And Surveying Your Community

Which community do you belong to? What is it like? What do members of your community think about the Council, each other, or dog mess on the streets?

Communities and Neighbourhoods

A 'community' is a group of people with a common interest. For example, you could be part of a community of public transport users (your common interest might be reliable and frequent buses); or a community of neighbours (a safe and pleasant neighbourhood could be your common interest). Neighbourhood communities are some of the strongest because the local environment is full of things we share: schools, parks, roads, health services and, hopefully, safe streets, clean air and fresh water.

Although a neighbourhood may help define a community, they are not the same thing. There can be significant differences of interest within and between - communities. Urban neighbourhoods in particular are subject to rapid changes in their make up and may contain people with widely differing values. Historically, if you didn't like life in the country you moved to the town. Nowadays it's often the other way around. Rural neighbourhoods are relatively 'homogeneous' (undivided) but they too contain divisions: 'incomers', for example, may form a community of their own.

So although we share the local environment, there is no guarantee we all feel the same way about it. People have different expectations, needs, experiences and values. The place we live is one thing about which we're all experts, however: all views are equally valid. If we want to get a handle on what the 'community view' is we need a tool.

Community Surveys

Surveys can be a useful method of research, enabling you to gauge opinion on a range of matters. A well-planned survey can be extremely useful, in prioritising projects, in lobbying the council, in proving that you have the backing of your community and even in drawing the community together. You must plan the survey carefully though.

Start at the end

Think about what the results will be used for. Perhaps you are concerned over a single issue (Do you agree with the extension of the car park?) in which case a simple 'Yes/No/Don't Know' answer would be appropriate. You might be asking a more open-ended question such as: 'What should be done with the patch of scrubland at the end of the street?' In this case the answers could be very wide-ranging indeed. The more open-ended questions you ask, the greater the effort you will need to put in after the survey to summarise the results. If too many of your questions require just a yes or no answer then your survey might not be fair. Come up with a draft survey form, try it out on a few people and then try to analyse the results. This will give you a good idea of the complexity of the task. There is nothing worse than raising people's expectations with a survey and then taking months to deliver the results.

Questionnaire or Interview?

There are two basic ways to conduct a survey. You can give people forms and ask them to complete them themselves or you can interview them on the doorstep or the street and complete the forms for them.

It is less labour-intensive to drop a survey form through every door in the neighbourhood than it is to knock on every door and ask a series of questions but you can expect a lower response if you ask people to fill in the forms themselves. You will also make it difficult for people who have difficulty with written material (20% of the population have problems with reading, writing and numeracy) or who would rather communicate face to face rather than on paper.

Sampling

It is important that the people you include in your survey are representative of your community. If say 30% of the population are over 65 but only 5% of the people you survey are, then your sample will be biased against older people. You can get a breakdown of the population of your ward from the National Statistics web site. You need survey the views of a representative number of people. If you are interested in the views of a single street, you should try to survey everyone but if you want the views of a whole ward, that won't be possible.

As long as you make sure that you survey the appropriate numbers of younger and older people and so on, you should never need to survey more than 200 people.

There is a very useful section on surveys in the Community Work Skills Manual (the 1999 edition).

Finding Out for Real

Surveys are not the only way of canvassing views from your community. In fact there are a huge number of techniques to fit almost every circumstance. One of the most famous is Planning for Real. This is a technique where a model is built of the area and then local people are invited to view the model, discuss the future and make their views known through the use of flags. The Neighbourhood Initiatives Foundation developed and promotes Planning for Real along with other participative techniques. Other techniques that have been used include the Planning for People process for community centres, organising focus groups and using citizens' juries.

Surveys and focus groups can be extremely useful when you have a specific question to ask but often finding out about your community can help to bring everyone closer together. The charity Common Ground encourages the celebration of local distinctiveness that is celebrating where you live and the people who live there, not because it is better than anywhere else but because it is special and unique. Common Ground (and many other groups such as WIs) promote the concept of Parish Maps.

Mapping the Community

Though the name suggests rural areas, parish maps can be applied anywhere, rural or urban, large or small. Parish maps are not about understanding the physical layout of an area, they are about understanding the spiritual layout. Parish Maps help show how a community feels about their neighbourhood, what makes them proud, what they like (and dislike) about their home.

The concept is extremely flexible, and used well can be a powerful tool drawing communities together and helping them learn from and about each other.

There are many 'parish mapping' like techniques aimed at particular age groups or type of communities. Brecon Beacons National Park staff for example run a regular project with primary school children where they are given disposable cameras and asked to photograph examples of things they like and dislike about their area. Parish maps have been created on quilt, video, murals and so on.

There are plenty of ideas out there to help you get to know your community and however you choose to do it involving the wider community in decision making and discussion will produce healthier, active, more sustainable outcomes.