Engaging with the local agenda in Rotherham
Karen Moore, one of WRC’s policy officers, talks to Sue Barratt, manager of Rotherham-based women’s organisation GROW (Giving Real Opportunities to Women) to find out about her experiences of engaging with the Local Strategic Partnership and whether the Rotherham Women’s Strategy means that gender is firmly on the agenda.GROW aims to provide a unique holistic service to women in Rotherham to enable them to make informed choices. As well as advocating on behalf of local women, they identify and challenge the barriers that prevent women from achieving their full potential, providing guidance, coaching, mentoring and support and training and education opportunities.
A Women's Strategy for Rotherham
They also lead on the
Rotherham Women’s Network which aims to get women more involved in local decision making and ensure they have a voice and influence in identifying and determining local priorities. Earlier this year, they launched a Women’s Strategy for Rotherham in partnership with Rotherham Council.
I asked about where the impetus for the strategy came from. “The need for a strategy was identified by the Chief Executive’s department of the council and it was supported by the leader of the council which made a difference to the profile of it. The timescales coincided with the development of the
Gender Equality Duty within Rotherham.”
Sue explained further that Rotherham Council wanted to meet their obligations under the Gender Equality Duty which opened up opportunities for GROW workers to bring real issues that were affecting Rotherham families to the table.
GROW's involvement with Rotherham's LSP
As well as championing the Women’s Strategy, Sue is also involved with
Rotherham’s Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) as a voluntary sector representative. She has been a member of the LSP board for three years and is one of two voluntary sector representatives whose role is to take voluntary sector issues to the LSP board and provide feedback to the voluntary sector (and so does not represent women’s sector issues specifically). Another staff member from GROW is involved in one of the LSP theme boards as a representative from the Diversity Steering Group (but again, not as a women’s sector representative).
Involvement with the LSP takes time and commitment. Sue attends bi-monthly meetings which last about three hours and then writes a report on it afterwards. As a voluntary sector representative she also attends a bi-monthly pre-briefing session with the Chief Executive Officer of Voluntary Action Rotherham before the borough’s Chief Officers’ meeting. None of the representation is at present resourced (which is a common experience for most voluntary sector representatives) but Sue feels that engagement has been beneficial.
“It’s been beneficial for GROW because it’s enabled us to develop relationships with Chief Officers from the partner organisations such as the police, council, local colleges and so on. Involvement has also helped to raise the profile and understanding of GROW’s work and its impact on Rotherham’s strategic agenda.”
Getting gender on Rotherham's agenda
However, in spite of the Women’s Strategy and GROW’s representation on the LSP (albeit without a specific remit to feed in the concerns of women and women’s organisations), it is still early days in terms of embedding gender into the LSP. “On occasions I have raised lack of gender representation on the LSP or other strategic boards. Lack of diversity on the board has been acknowledged to a certain extent though. A BME [Black and minority ethnic] representative position has been created which has been very successful.”
Sue cites the strong BME network which supported the development of the position as vital and would like to see this extended to include other equality groups in the future. Which brings us back to the Women’s Network. Sue tells me that the Women’s Network was established 18 months ago and that “it is working with local women to create a united women’s sector and inform partners about the issues that are impacting on women and their families. It is in its infancy but is committed to becoming more established and having a united, representative and stronger voice.” Hopefully this will lead to acknowledgement of the need for someone to represent women’s needs and concerns on the LSP.
GROW, along with the Women’s Network, has been very active in the development and roll out of the Rotherham Women’s Strategy ensuring local women’s issues have been raised. For this involvement and momentum of activity to continue the network needs to be sustainable and therefore requires the current commitment to it to continue. Sue and the rest of GROW are working hard to ensure this happens. “The key” says Sue, “is about ensuring representation and that it is properly resourced – there must be mechanisms for feeding in and feeding out of the LSP.”
You can do it too!
Finally, I asked Sue what advice she had for other women’s organisations who want to engage with their LSP. “Find out about the Community Empowerment Network or equivalent and ask questions and ask for clear understandable answers – keep asking. It can appear like a secret society and be intimidating at first – but it’s not – it just needs explaining simply. Also try and get involved in the strategic partnership or its related groups.”
If the network can continue, GROW has been considering that it could support the setting up of a shadowing/buddy system where individuals from women’s groups or someone from the women’s network could shadow people on the LSP or similar boards to help dispel the myths about them. “It’s about making small steps – gather information, ask questions, get involved at a local level, take risks (with the support of other women) start off with the theme boards - then work up to the LSP.”