Brian Holmes joined us for a reunion event in September for past and present staff and board to come together and look back at Supporting Communities’ 40-year history.

Speaking at the reception, Brian told us his part in the story actually starts more than 40 years ago. We decided to follow up with him and find out more about the origins of our organisation. We spoke to Brian by phone and this is the story he told us!

Brian Holmes first came to Ballymena in 1976 when he took a job as a youth and community worker at the Waveney Youth Centre in the Doury Road area of Ballymena. He remembers he didn’t get a very warm welcome because the community felt strongly that the new youth resource centre should have been a Community Centre for everyone.

The residents’ association at the time used the youth centre for meetings with the Housing Executive and Brian remembers a fraught relationship with the then District Manager, clearly due to frustration with the lack of services in their area. Tensions ran high and the meetings went nowhere.

Recognising that the strained relationship between service providers and the community was not helping anyone, Brian asked the Housing Executive manager to come back for a further meeting and he would act as chair. It was at that meeting that the Housing Executive manager asked the community to provide their own solutions to the problems being faced by the community!

Brian and the group sat down to do just that. They began to develop an action plan looking at not just housing, but all the issues relevant to the area. Together they produced a concrete plan of what they wanted to happen. Brian remembers the Housing Executive reacting with some shock when they were presented with it! The community not only knew and understood what the issues were, but they also had the answers.

This proactive, community-led approach was gaining momentum in Doury Road and the mayor at the time organised for the residents' group to have a further meeting with the Housing Executive at their headquarters in Belfast to discuss their ideas. The residents found that the Executive’s maps of the area were out of date and used it as an opportunity to speak from a position of knowledge and strength about their own neighbourhood. They wanted to talk about more than just housing issues, there were wider resources needed to make the Doury Road area a good place to live and first on the list was the need for a Community Centre.

In 1978, Doury Road successfully got their community centre and Brian and the group applied to the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust for a 3-year grant to formalise their work. With some additional funding from an American source, Brian was then able to quit his job at the Education and Library Board to become a full-time community worker and that was the precursor to the first project in 1979 that has since grown into the current day Supporting Communities.

Next Steps: The Priority Estates Project

The Doury Road Project, as it was known at the start, successfully built up several new programmes as well as a sense of community spirit in what had been known as one of the most difficult and challenging estates to manage in Northern Ireland. By 1983, the project was coming to an end and Brian was looking for sources of funding to keep it running. The Housing Executive saw the benefits of the work and wanted to replicate the success elsewhere, but it was essential that the project remained independent from the Housing Executive to gain communities’ buy-in. Finally, the NI Voluntary Trust (NIVT) agreed to act as the sponsoring body which enabled funding to be channelled from the Housing Executive which in turn enabled Brian to continue in his role and provide that independent support to the Doury Road.

In 1986, Brian successfully secured joint funding from both NIVT and the Housing Executive to employ six new workers to reproduce the Doury Road process in other troubled estates in Northern Ireland. He says it never would have succeeded without the Housing Executive coming along on the journey and recognising the importance of the community development approach.

The new workers were located in three areas of Belfast, as well as in Derry, Craigavon, and Antrim. All six came together on a regular basis to share their experiences and best practice tips for building support in communities and from within the Housing Executive.

The projects were a success, but longer-term funding continued to be a problem. Brian will tell you a funny story about running after and literally jumping into a car with the then DoE Minister, Richard Needham, who was visiting the project at Drumellan, Craigavon to put forward his case for a more permanent solution. His efforts, and daring dashes through the streets, paid off.

The Department came through with funding to continue Brian’s post as well as the six workers and with the continued support from the Housing Executive, the Estates Action Project was formed working with over 40 communities to develop area strategies and other initiatives.

NITAP Merger

In 1991, the Estates Action Project merged with a NICVA based project, TPAS to become NITAP – Northern Ireland Tenants Action Project in 1991. Seamus McAleavey, Chief Executive of NICVA, has already told this part of the story in his blog contribution from this past June.

Brian remembers the staff and board of the organisation were never happy with the new name, however. They had taken the ‘Tenant’ from TPAS and ‘Action’ from EAP and made it into one but the new name didn’t get to the heart of the work which was about community development. Finally, in 2008, they decided to change it. “We all put forward our ideas and ended up with Supporting Communities NI – which said what we did on the tin”, Brian recalls.

Brian also told us about the significance of the creation of the Community Advisory Group. The precursor to the current day Housing Community Network, this structure gave tenants and residents a place at the table where decisions were being made for the first time.

Residents sent a community representative to the district office and from each District, a rep came to an Area Panel and had the chance to put forward views and opinions. In 1997, the Central CAG was formed and Paddy McIntyre and Colm McCaughley of the Housing Executive played an active part in ensuring it was a success by attending the central meetings and encouraging their staff to be involved at the area and district levels.

“But at the heart of it”, Brian says, “we couldn’t have done it without the residents – their active involvement was key to it all.”

Staff photo from the early 90’s. Spot some of the faces that are still with Supporting Communities today!

Looking back, Brian notes how many of the people leading the organisation now were staff members back in the days of NITAP. Long term staff are the foundation of the organisation, he says.

“They believed in what we were doing, and they have stuck with us”.

It’s this long-term commitment and resulting institutional memory that has made Supporting Communities special and keeps it embedded in the communities we serve. Even as the organisation grows and changes with the times, we always strive to remember where we came from and our core purpose to support and empower communities.