Leadership, advocacy and activism for children and families in Barton Hill, Bristol

Many parents coming to the UK from cultures where ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ experience life here as isolating and stressful. Often living in neighbourhoods lacking in resources, with multiple intersecting forces tending to marginalise families within UK society, their children can lack early opportunities for play and social interaction within which they can socialise, learn and mature. Aiming to improve family wellbeing and early child development, we have developed a programme of research and action called ‘Find your village’. We seek to activate migrant communities’ traditions, cultures, and knowledge (their ‘latent assets’) through coordinated action by communities and agencies.

In Bristol, local commissioners are interested in whether NHS and other statutory funding may be effective, preventive and inequality-reducing if used to support local community organisations. We decided to explore this in one local area - Barton Hill, a neighbourhood in central Bristol with rich cultural diversity, many migrant families and multiple indicators of socio-economic deprivation. We met with five community leaders, working to improve lives for children and families through advocacy and activism in and around Barton Hill, for a focus group discussion in April 2024. We asked them about their work, what helps and what restricts or challenges their activities, how they had become community leaders, and what might help children and families further. Our findings from this discussion are summarised below.

We hope this report may be useful to those planning future activities to help migrant families, and seeking resources to support advocacy and change.

Summary
Community leaders can help communities meet needs that statutory or official processes (‘the system’) do not. By working collaboratively with authorities and community organisations, community leaders can bring their firsthand knowledge of the community’s challenges into a position of influence, and help services address community needs effectively. Working from within the community and voluntary sector can sometimes enable greater impact. An advocacy or activist role can effectively draw attention to social injustices by bringing people and evidence together - to make problems public, and to contribute to pressure on agencies to take action.

Leaders understand and draw on community strengths, using their close personal connections to build trust and networks within their community. Aware of the gradual process of trust developing, they work to create trusted spaces in the community where people can share their experiences without threat or fear of judgement. Networks within the community help leaders mobilise people, tap into diverse experiences and talents, and improve community life. Leaders seek to educate institutions about the cultures in their community, as well as, sensitively, seeking to challenge cultural norms and urban myths within their own communities. Confidence and pride in working interculturally was apparent throughout the discussion, with belief that other communities can learn from Barton Hill’s ability to integrate diverse cultures.

Leaders described their actions initially stemming from personal experience, seeking change in their own circumstances and those close to them, and then developing further. Developing shared aims and approaches increased their effectiveness. Local leadership appeared to contribute to a positive cycle serving to empower, encourage and interconnect community action. At the same time, leaders articulated challenges, barriers, needs and resources for them, their activities and their communities, as well as their visions about larger-scale change.

These findings are developed further under the following headings:
• Working with the system
• Working with personal connections to build trust and networks
• Working with culture
• Growing as leaders
• Articulating challenges, barriers, needs and resources.