Karen Duggan

Creating Community Cohesion: The Power of Using Innovative Methods to Facilitate Engagement and Genuine Partnership

National policies implemented at local level require marginalised community groups to work with public sector agencies and professionals. It can be a significant challenge to work across these boundaries. This article explores how creative and visual methods can be used to support people from so-called ‘hard-to-reach’ groups to articulate complex thoughts and ideas, and communicate their experience of living in their communities. Examples are drawn from the authors’ recent work in the north of England on regeneration and social cohesion, in which university staff collaborated on separate projects in partnership with – and driven by – community groups.