Cornerstone Tower Hamlets Learning Event. Thursday 6 February. 12.00 to 1.30pm. #CornerstoneTowerHamlets. Graphic of circles overlapping each other.

About the Tower Hamlets Cornerstone Project

The Tower Hamlets Cornerstone Project is a partnership between Tower Hamlets Council for Voluntary Service (THCVS) – the infrastructure organisation supporting the voluntary sector in London Borough of Tower Hamlets and six community groups and organisations.
 
This two year project, funded by The National Lottery, developed an approach to influence more inclusive decision-making across public sector agencies in Tower Hamlets. The project created a model for voluntary sector partnership for public sector bodies wanting to work with local communities to address inequalities within policy making services in Tower Hamlets. Our continuing goal is to ensure that all residents benefit from improved planning and decision-making that better reflects the experiences and needs of disadvantaged and marginalised communities across London.

The project aims to achieve this by:

  • Creating a partnership that brings together community organisations led by and representing people across the diversity of lived experiences in Tower Hamlets by partners working together, and with public sector bodies, to create a good practice guide and resource for carrying out Equality Impact Assessments (EqIAs) across the borough.

  • Raising awareness and improving the visibility and understanding of the different equalities’ issues and experiences across our communities through practical, lived, understanding of intersectionality and how this applies in Tower Hamlets. 

Up and coming event

 
We will be hosting an online event on the Thursday 6 February between 12 to 1.30pm. With the opportunity to learn about 
coproduction with residents and intersectionality to create inclusive decision making. 
 
On-going offer:
    • The partnership have developed a free consultancy programme. Each partner is able to offer support to organisations (local government or NHS) on supporting EqIAs on their protected characteristic.
    • On engaging with communities on data, analysis and mitigating actions.
    • Intersectionality training for local authority and NHS staff.

For further information please contact alison.robert@thcvs.org.uk.

Click here to register.

 

What the Cornerstone project did

The project achievements:
 
  • The partnership – the project created a partnership that brought together community organisations led by and representing people across the protected characteristics and diversity of lived experiences in Tower Hamlets with the local authority officers involved in supporting other officers to complete EqIAs.
  • Residents panel – The partners recruited and supported residents to be part of a panel who looked at the Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) for the Violence against women and girls strategy.  They worked together, with public sector bodies, to create a good practice guide and resource for carrying out Equality Impact Assessments (EqIAs) across the borough.
  • Theory of change – the programme appointed a learning partner ‘Capture Consulting’ to support the partnership to develop the theory of change. This was to be able to the partnership to be able to measue its impact.
  • Training – the partnership identified that they needed to better understand each others perspectives and The focus was on intersectionality to agree how to address diversity, inequalities, equity and inclusion. The course was run by Donna Carty from www.resolvevolve.com.
  • Supporting better understanding for staff – the project partners and residents worked together to develop a Good Practice Guide to support staff writing EqIAs to address intersectionality. 
  • Raising awareness – in order to improve the visibility and understanding of the different equalities’ issues and experiences. The project developed a training and awareness session for residents. This is supported by a leaflet for residents.
  • Launch event – in order to share the learning from the programme the project hosted a learning event. Click here for the event information.

The Partners

Logos for: Age UK East London: Representing the Older People’s Reference Group Tower Hamlets Inter Faith Forum: Representing faith communities Real: Representing people living with disabilities Account3: Representing the Women’s Network Limehouse Project: Representing the ethnic minority network Women’s Inclusive Team: Representing the ethnic minority network elop: Representing the LGBT forum

Working with residents

In order to enhance decision-making and ensure it reflects the diverse experiences and needs of disadvantaged and marginalised communities, we have formed a resident panel comprised of two members for each of the seven organisations involved. Each organisation and their respective panel members, represent different protected characteristic groups within the borough. The Resident Panel is the fundamental part of the project in order to help curate effective inclusive decision making.
 
The panel were brought together to meet on a monthly basis to:
  • Get to know each other and better understand the project.
  • Train on intersectionality.
  • Attend the consultations on the Violence against women and girls strategy.
  • Help develop the theory of change.
  • Coproduce the adaption of the EqIA assessment form to address intersectionality and inequity.
  • Design and deliver the launch event
The panel were supported by the partners and THCVS.
 
 

Introducing our learning partners:

Dan Range and Tom Fisher - Capture Consulting

Dan Range and Tom Fisher Capture consulting Dan Range and Tom Fisher have joined the Cornerstone Partnership team as Learning Partners. Their role will be to work with all those involved to understand the difference the project is making for residents, the Council and the partner organisations themselves.

Between now and October 2024, Dan and Tom will be joining meetings, talking to those involved and facilitating interviews, group discussions, surveys and so on.

They’ll be helping in two main areas. Firstly, they’ll use the information they gather to advise on how the project could work better, helping the partners to understand your feedback during the project.

Secondly, Dan and Tom will write a report which will capture the impact of the programme for its key stakeholders: residents, partnership organisations and the Council.

The report will be based partly on the information and feedback you provide.

Any information you give to Dan and Tom in interviews, surveys, etc. will be completely anonymous and kept confidential – Dan and Tom are bound by research ethics protocols so they treat your data as you’d expect it to be treated: securely, anonymously, confidentially and with consent. Dan and Tom are community researchers.

They’ve been researching across the UK together for the last 15 years, including a good amount of research in Tower Hamlets. In that time, they’ve worked on issues of social cohesion, faith and interfaith relations, racism, disability, gender discrimination, poverty and deprivation, health services, volunteering, inequality and a wide range of other areas.

Their main focus is in understanding how community programmes work, who they work for and how they can work better. In this project, Dan and Tom will be looking at how well the Cornerstone partnership works together, works with residents and works with the Council. Dan and Tom will also look at what kind of change the project can create in the Borough. 

If you have any questions or would like more information, you can contact them directly: tom@captureconsulting.co.uk and dan@captureconsulting.co.uk