Reflections on 40: Thank you for a great milestone year!

by Colm McDaid

As 2019 draws to an end, so too will the 40th Anniversary of Supporting Communities and the celebrations that have gone with it. In this last blog of our anniversary series I hope to offer some final reflections on the past year.

The theme that we adopted for our 40th Anniversary was ‘Looking Back to Look Forward’. In terms of ‘looking back’, we have had some wonderful blogs, vlogs and articles from a host of people including Lorraine Campbell, our Chair, members of our staff past and present, partner organisations here and from across the UK, and key influencers and advocates of our work such as Prof Paddy Gray. The contributions span the course of our 40 years, from the memories and reflections of those who were with us starting out in Doury Road to the thoughts of new partners with whom we are only beginning to work.

In preparing to write this final blog, I read through and listened to all the pieces published during the past year and the one common thread in each, apart from the high regard and respect with which Supporting Communities is held, was the importance of the community and the grassroots work which is so embedded in our DNA. Supporting Communities has evolved from a single person community development project in Ballymena to one now of almost 30 staff working province-wide, supporting and empowering over 500 community and tenant groups and the countless individuals who are members of these groups.

Colm McDaid with Clark Bailie at Supporting Communities 40th Celebration Event.

To reinforce the importance of our community development roots, our Board and Staff agreed our 3-year Strategic Plan during the early part of the year and identified ‘Strengthening the Core’ as the central plank around which the other 4 Strategic Objectives were based. This ‘core work’ is very much aligned to our partnership with the Housing Executive, whose financial support over the years Supporting Communities has enabled us to deliver on our goals of sustaining communities and improving the quality of life for residents right across Northern Ireland. As Clark Bailie, Chief Executive of the Housing Executive, alluded to at our recent Celebration Event in Parliament Buildings, “both Supporting Communities and the Housing Executive have been on a shared journey in terms of tenant engagement over the past 40 years and it’s one that has greatly benefitted both organisations.”

In terms of ‘Looking Forward’, Supporting Communities, like any other organisation or business, needs to work to its strengths while also being open to new opportunities.

Empowering Communities (Enterprise Limited), established in 2017, is our trading subsidiary which acts as a delivery arm for Supporting Communities. I am delighted to say this trading subsidiary has started to prove itself by providing a membership offer to the majority of housing associations based in Northern Ireland and has now begun to work with and support social landlords in the Republic of Ireland as well.

Earlier this month, at our celebration event in Stormont, we launched our newest product to support social housing providers to improve their tenant participation practice. The Tenant Participation Standards are an assessment framework designed to provide social landlords with an objective measurement of their Tenant Participation activities through three standardised levels of accreditation. We think this scheme will help raise the overall standard of tenant engagement in Northern Ireland which benefits us all.

We have also begun to collect online participants for our new residents’ survey series entitled, The Amp, which will start in the new year. The Amp will enable everyone who signs up to easily express their views on a range of community and housing-related issues and is another means of Supporting Communities empowering residents to express their voices.

I am also very excited by our partnership with Disability Action NI, who are the lead partner in the ONSIDE Project (Peace IV Programme) which will see our staff deliver digital training to over 2,000 participants over the next three years across Northern Ireland and the border counties. This initiative, along with our most recent collaboration with the National Trust which employs a new Community Development Officer in the village of Cushendun also for 3 years, highlights the high regard in which Supporting Communities is held by our peers in the third sector.

So to wrap up the 40th celebrations I want to say I am both honoured and privileged to be leading Supporting Communities into its 41st year. I would like to pay special thanks to our Board, past and present, who have provided and continue to provide the organisation and staff with our strategic direction, ongoing support, and give us great confidence in all that we do.

Theresa Patton, Brian Holmes and Colm McDaid at a celebration of Supporting Communities staff and board.

I also wish to acknowledge Brian Holmes whose original vision of providing independent support to communities like Doury Road remains to this day. The dedication and commitment of our staff, past and present, has made Supporting Communities the wonderful organisation it is today and is the reason why we are held in such high esteem across every community we support and every agency we work with.

Finally, a word of thanks to all those who contributed to what has been a memorable 40th anniversary year for Supporting Communities. To those who contributed blogs, appeared on video, spoke at or attended our celebration events and who provided photographs and stories about their journeys with Supporting Communities, a sincere ‘Thank you’.