communities

This episode of Radio 4's Woman's Hour series looks at how a group of Yorkshire women were determined to save a tradition. For generations the women of Skipton have pegged out their washing on lines strung across the back alley that separates Thornton Street from Clitheroe Street. But when a man complained that this practice prevented him parking his car behind his house, it looked as though this tradition might come to an end. Margaret Hicks has lived in the street all her life and was determined to galvanise a group of women into fighting back.

This episode of Radio 4's Thinking Allowed series includes two segments. In the first Laurie Taylor speaks to Dr Laura Piacentini about her new research on imprisonment in Russia which took her to prison colonies where she lived, shared vodka with the prison officers and listened to recitations of Alexander Pushkin's poetry. There, she discovered that contrary to expectations, the Russian penal system allowed prisoners certain freedoms denied them in British jails.

Collection of case studies and papers which advocate collaboration as a new approach to running local public services. It attempts to provide answers to the questions, why work together?, where can the beginnings of new approaches be found? and what form would government take if it was redesigned for collaboration?

The Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities works with people and their families to ensure they can use effective services, play a fuller part in communities and society, and enjoy equal rights. It develops projects and services that can be copied across the UK. The Foundation aims to ensure that people with learning disabilities are supported in living as active citizens in the community, with real choices.

This briefing is the first output from the ippr-PwC social care programme. This programme seeks to generate public debate about the future of social care; and consider how the social contract between the state, organisations, communities, families and individuals may need to fundamentally change to ensure that the future of social care is based on principles of fairness and sustainability. This publication it's free, in order to download there are two ways to do it, by registering or just by following the link to download it.

The Home Office's Restorative Justice web page outlines the Government's Restorative Justice Strategy. Restorative justice provides an opportunity for victims, offenders and sometimes representatives of the community to communicate about an offence and how to repair the harm caused. Victim participation is always voluntary, and offenders need to have admitted some responsibility for the harm they have caused.

Report of the proceedings of the 'Getting it right for everyone' conference held in Perth on 13th November 2007. The conference was concerned with improving the ability of those working in community planning to engage with people with learning disabilities and raising awareness of the issues facing people with learning disabilities in respect of planning the future of local communities.

Paper arguing that local communities are well placed to be an integral part of counter-terrorism activities. It contends that communities can be important sources of information and intelligence, can act to divert young people from extremism, can take the lead in tackling problems which cause grievances and fully legitimise the work of police and security services by consenting to their activities.

Survey assessing what progress has been made in alleviating social problems in the areas of welfare, employment, education, health, crime and community.

This study assesses the need and demand within voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) for relevant, analysed and well-presented data to support their work tackling poverty. The poverty agenda has shifted away from ‘top-down’ action by central government towards the engagement of local voluntary and community organisations. As small, independent groups with their own ideas about tackling poverty, VCOs represent a powerful, ‘bottom-up’ approach.