Case Study

Bringing Hope to Hillfields

Hope Centre Ltd

Case Study produced by Anne-Laure Desideri  June 2009

Mesure 3.3 Building Sustainable and Connected Communities

HO2/2003/23

http://www.hope-centre.com

Sparkbrook Street

Hillfields

Coventry

CV1 5LN

02476 238 326

Purpose of the Project

Hope Church, formally called the Coventry Christian Fellowship, had a growing congregation in Cheylesmore. As the building was in poor repair, the Church decided relocating its building in another area of Coventry. The Church also felt that there were some growing needs in the Coventry's priority communities such as Hillfields.   The project was designed to create:   -A 50-place day nursery offering childcare for parents and carers of children aged from 6 weeks to 5 years old. - A learning centre offering training courses to local people enabling them to improve their skills and thus to secure employment. - A community coffee bar providing healthy food for residents, providing a meeting place for a chat or informal meetings. -A community hall for conferences, training sessions, community activities purposes.

  The project has sought to:  Support people in difficulties. Reduce social inequalities. Provide support and training to the residents of the area, give them a chance to find their way back to work and to develop their potential. The venue through promoting a positive image of Hillfields aimed to attract new investors into Hillfields to develop business activities.

Community of Interest

Lone parents, teenage parents, parents and carers, young people, people from BME communities, homeless people, refugees and asylum seekers, unemployed people, people with learning difficulties, people on a low income, economic migrants, resident associations, people with drug or alcohol misuse issues, community organisations, local businesses, people with poor literacy or numeracy skills, people with language needs.

The Project Story

The need for additional Childcare services, Youth services and Learning and training opportunities was a key element in the Church's decision to relocate in Hillfields. Indeed, it has to be underlined that there wasn't a community facility in that part of Hillfields. The decision to develop the Hope Centre's project in the Hillfields area was also clearly facilitated due to the availability of funding for the refurbishment and development of the site and services. To begin with, the Church hired an architect in order to have a cost estimation of the forthcoming project. The Church then appointed a Chief Executive Bill Watt to develop the project and secure the funding. Based on the consultation of local population and in regards to the current infrastructures of the Hillfields area, Bill decided that the site should provide a learning centre, a community hall, a coffee bar, a day nursery and a youth club. All these services were first designed to generate revenue and thus support and encourage the prosperity of the centre. However, the project still required strong financial support.

Consequently, Bill Watt sought for local partners in order to involve them in the project and thus secure revenue for the project. He approached Henley College asking it to provide learning zone on the Hillfields site. Additionally, he spoke to the Coventry City Council's early years and Childcare Development Team about the Neighbourhood Nursery Initiative which aimed to increase childcare in priority neighbourhoods. Then, he approached the Beacon Trust* to provide additional costs to help local people to access childcare and training. Henley College bid for partnership with Hope Centre to Advantage West Midlands Learning Centre Initiative successfully attracting the funding to set up two training rooms and an ICT suite. Even though the Centre secured a loan with its bank to cover the initial start up costs additional funding was required. With a significant number of residents moving to the new City housing estate, which had been developed on the Old Coventry City Football ground a growing need for community facilities was predicted. The Hope Centre Ltd was then invited to submit a full bid. They received support from the Programme and a Regeneration Services Project Officer in developing the bid.

There were concerns on the lack of financial guarantee for the bid but also on giving significant funds to an organisation with no track record of managing European funding and which had not worked in Hillfields previously. The Hope Centre's project was thus monitored closely. In addition, the level of the Chief Executives salary was initially regarded to be higher than the payment of the other officers working in local voluntary organisations. However, his salary was judged to be fairly reasonable in regards to the profit made by the organisation. Work was needed to ensure the organisation had all of the funding in place to deliver the project. As the figures were reworked and approved, the approval/green light to start the building work was given.   The work was delayed after a contractor using a digger hit an electricity cable which was not shown on the plans. However, everything was sorted out and the building works restarted.   During the process, the project was modified as an additional demand for baby spaces in the nursery had been expressed. Plans were then changed and the youth zone was replaced by a baby unit and relocated into the main hall. This relocation revealed to be conflicting. The dilemma stands between the desire to maintain the main hall as an attractive place for business affairs, meetings and weddings and the need for developing a more durable space for youth people. Consequently, the youth activities were reduced in regards to the original intention. Finally, youth people successfully worked in partnership with other local youth providers.

Issues remained concerning the kitchen design. The position of the kitchen in the centre of the building with no windows and no air-conditioning created safety and health issues. The lack of storage also proved problematic to store children' s play equipment. By trying to save money on the floor using volunteer labour ended up by creating an additional cost.   In conclusion, the Hope Centre successfully created a range of new services and activities accessible to the community. The project delivered most of it’s targets and meets it’s financial profile. The Hope Centre has inevitably been affected by the credit crunch and was therefore urged to make some staff cuts in 2007 to reduce costs. The recession is now more challenging the organisation which is now restructuring to ensure it’s sustainability in the future. With the reduction of funding, the Hope Centre has moved from creating activities to hosting activities provided by others in the centre.

Hillfields is recognised as one of Coventry's 31 most deprived communities and is part of St Michaels Ward one of the three most deprived wards in the City.

Hillfields was an area which suffered from a poor image due to visible social inequalities and long lasting unemployment. This area was under-developed and lacked of connections between the different communities who were living there. Hillfields was regarded as an area in decline. The majority of the population living in the area was experiencing a low skill level. The area was disconnected from the city centre. Rebuilding some links with the centre of Coventry was required in order to attract new comers and businesses. As a consequence, a fresh renewal was desperately needed.   *Beacon Trust is a charitable organisation which provides funds to help people on low-income access childcare.

The Hope Centre first opened on the 4th September 2004 in the Hillfields suburb. The aim of this multi-purpose centre was to create and thus develop a link between the residents of the Hillfields area. From now on this structure provides a full range of services such as a nursery, a church, a coffee bar, business and training courses in partnership with the Henley college. As an example and in regards to the results obtained at the end of 2007, it appeared that people who received training lessons succeeded in their exams and achieved a high level of qualification skills. Since the project has begun, the number of enrolments has increased steadily from 5 in 2002/2003 to 175 in 2006/2007. Since the learning zone opened 400 local people have enrolled on training courses with 1301 enrolments. Many students have progressed from introductory to higher-level courses. The reason for the training courses success is mainly understandable because of the high number of people whose first language isn't English. More recently, the Hope Centre gained 51 volunteers and trainee participants when only 40 of them were expected.   However, even if the training sessions proved to be a success only 31 people trained were employed when the expected result was 50. Moreover, the Hope Centre failed to bring people back to work when benefiting from the ESF support. Indeed, according to the forecast result 10 people benefiting from the European financial help should have found a job in the following 6 months. The actual result revealed that none of the ESF beneficiaries achieved this goal.As the Hope Centre is now receiving less funding that it used to in the past, its has moved from creating activities to hosting activities thanks to the commitments of people working in the centre. Finally, it appears that the Centre will continuously need to secure funding by applying to the public and charitable sector and business.

What difference has the project made?

The Hope Centre has successfully achieved and exceeded their core results. The target number of disadvantaged residents benefiting from the Hope Centre was exceeded. The Centre has provided support to ESOL, IT skills training and has supported voluntary and community enterprise and the community sector. The creation of the Hope Centre has clearly made a positive impact on Hillfields. Significant number of members of the community have benefited from advice and training sessions in order to improve their skills and potential. Some ethnic minority enterprise organisations were strongly supported by the centre providing support and exploring their potential opportunities.

The commitment of a number of local people in this project has undoubtedly been an added value for the area. Even if the project delivers good results and fulfils people's expectations we need to bear in mind that the Hope Centre's project suffered from a lack of structural organisation due to inaccurate professional advice and underdeveloped management information and policies. When asked about how the Hope Centre could be improved or what could have been done in a different way, a number of issues were raised. In order to make best use of the resources and to meet people's needs, they would employ staff on flexible contracts. Then, they would recommend developing a strong financial scheme, getting budgets in place and entering full cost recovery contracts.  

A new manager has recently taken place at the Hope Centre. He has new expectations for the future of the Hope Centre. In the years to come, the main idea would be to expand the childcare provision and provide activities for children after school and during holidays.