1. exchange knowledge about conceptual approaches, contexts and practices surrounding asset based methodologies in Athens and the UK
2. experiment with hands-on dimensions and instruments from diverse asset based approaches (e.g. cultural animation, glossopoly, cross-pollination, the creative citizen approach). and c) plan activities for field work and engagement in Athens.

The event also provided a useful basis for ‘experiencing’ the assets of asset based approaches used by some of the connected communities projects and offered a space for the Greek community partners to showcase their knowledge, discuss challenges of community action and brainstorm on ideas about ways to approach civil society groups and directions for further research and engagement activities.

The activities and discussions resulted in further adding evaluations within a matrix of asset based approaches, which was developed by the PI (via input from the research team and partners) and sparked a lot of reflections about the strengths and weakness of community research, the importance of communication infrastructures and plans surrounding the ‘applicability’ of an assets approach for exploring civic activism in Greece.

Our engagement with these different approaches has brought forward a number of critical questions about the strengths and weaknesses of asset mapping approaches when studying communication infrastructure and community.

Our engagement with asset mapping also inspired us in experimenting with innovative methodological approaches during the fieldwork with the LSE/USC project, which were further developed in a public engagement event, and has brought forward a number of critical questions about the strengths and weaknesses of asset mapping approaches when studying communication infrastructures within multicultural locales.

Writing on the wall: I am tormented.

Interviews were conducted, observations were collected and workshops were organised with representatives from more than 20 civil society groups in Athens (and one in Patras) with projects in:

1. placemaking and local residents’ assemblies;
2. solidarity assemblies and local alternative economies;
3. alternative media /technology and economy collectives
4. cultural /oral history groups e) migrant integration and social inclusion;
5. municipal-led initiatives for participatory governance.

Two workshops helped groups come together to unearth and map shared assets, discuss challenges and build potential collaborations through shared aspirations and knowledges can be better used or mobilised to support their projects.

Insights create a rich picture of different types of civic action and creative capital under conditions of austerity crisis in Athens, and to chart different types of communities, shared narratives, aspirations and challenges.

Related posts: Modalities of solidarity in Greece: a civil society at the cross-roads

Design for community garden by 9 year old – Sinfield Rise

Asset based community development (ABCD) is a participatory action research method and co-production tool being used with a diverse network of communities and community organizations across the Connected Communities programme, and beyond. It has been used to help uncover and utilise communities’ hidden potential, their tangible resources (such as spaces, services and infrastructures) and intangible qualities (such as talents, skills, knowledge, social, emotional and creative capital).

The project set out to build upon existing collaborations from Connected Communities projects (e.g. Media, Community and the Creative Citizen, Scaling up Co-Design, Unearthing Hidden Assets, Glossopoly, Bridging the Gap between academic practice and community relevance, Web 2 Community Hacking) and to expand the network of community-academic partnerships engaged in asset based approaches (e.g. Community through digital connectivity/LSE, Creating Hackney as Home and our community partners in Greece/Atenistas) with a view to:

• creatively map an inventory of approaches
• reflect upon, and co-evaluate different dimensions, strengths and weaknesses
• cross-pollinate insights from knowledge and new relations and networks as they emerge with engagement with civil society organizations and community groups in the UK and Greece.

Organising assets on a Monopoly Board

Through field trips, reflective interviews and experiential workshops we have found out that dramaturgical techniques deployed by cultural animation & game-like activities (lego, drawing, monopoly) deployed in co-design processes can enhance self-confidence, break down hierarchical barriers for participation and fuel positive attitudes for action among marginalised, or unheard of youth groups.

We reflected upon the affordances of asset mapping for unlocking perceptions of value about places and communication infrastructures within localities through psycho-geographies and through co-creative processes (e.g. the production films in Hackney & the production of Glossopoly, the co-creation a totem pole in Western Hales, the co-creation of visual, digital platforms for participatory planning). These modes of engagement with place, help develop critical literacy skills and facilitate new communication and networking avenues among local stakeholders and residents.

Re-desinging monopoly with people as assets – Sinfield Rise

The event was organised by Dr Lam and co-facilitated by Dr Alevizou, who also offered observations and reflective notes about the affordances of the engagement methods used with children at the Shinfield Rise Community Flat. The workshop was designed to encourage children at the Shinfield Rise Community Flat to play a more active role in exploring their area and helping Community Associates and Community First members identify/prioritise areas for future development, e.g. new community garden.

The event created positive responses from the young people involved in the community and generated creative outputs for the design of an under-utilised community garden. The creative activities used (drawing, lego, and monopoly board) during the event helped young people think more positively about their area, by enacting their desires through imaginative play.

The activity gave important insights about the dynamics of young people’s participation in co-designing activities. Peer pressure and self-image influence appear to influence the way that young people engage with their communities. At the practical level the activity also offered some insights about the power of creative methodologies and the affordances of play in stimulating desires for civic engagement at the local level.

Related posts: Unearthing hidden assets

The ladder of participation – Cultural animation in Pictures of Health

A ‘Picture of Health’ was set out to co-design a health agenda with local communities in Stoke on Trent in response to the top-down health agenda that remains prevalent in public health discourses. The workshop organised by Co-I Prof. Keleman, Kindle Partnership and community partner Sue Moffact (New Vic Theatre) who worked with participants worked three groups to explore solutions to three ‘problem focussed’ community health scenarios using approaches from cultural animation.

The event encouraged participants to achieve personal and collective goals by articulating ideas and experiences through dramaturgical play and the development of narratives through artefacts, rather than the written word. Participants were immersed into creative thinking around challenges surrounding surrounding health services and worked out pathways to solidarity. The activity offered a hands on insight about the benefits (and shortcomings) of cultural animation in community settings, and gave the PI (Giota Alevizou) a rich perspective on cultural animation via participant observation.

The approach aimed to create an environment in which community members, academics and other participants co-design and co-produce shared themes around health services’ crises and create artistic outputs based on the themes emerging . These techniques included the development of artistic narratives such as poems, songs, and other outs puppets, tableaux as well stimulate mini performances enacting the themes explored.

Related posts: Cultural Animation

This working paper critically reviews some main aspects from asset based approaches highlights key strengths and weaknesses for future research/development. Drawing on a large body of reports and relevant literature we draw on different theoretical traditions and critiques, as well as practices and processes embedded within a broad range of approaches including, widely acknowledged frameworks such Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), Appreciative Inquiry (AI), Sustainable Livelihood Approaches (SLA) and Community Capitals Framework (CCF). Although these are presented as distinct approaches, there is a sense of evolution through them and many of them overlap (in terms of both theories and methodologies). We also include emerging frameworks, including geographical, socio-spatial, visual and creative approaches, stemming from a number of projects within AHRC’s Connected Communities programme and additional collaborations.

Our primarily objective have been to collate and compare insights relating to:

1. the theoretical premise of asset based approaches
2. the types of assets captured by existing approaches, and the processes/approaches to ‘mapping’ they deploy
3. the contextual conditions that asset based approaches seek to address
4. the strengths and weakness of specific approaches for supporting not only incremental and smaller scale changes, but also, for creating the conditions to support wider, or systemic issues and problems

Insights from the approaches, methods and case studies we provided, suggest that asset-based approaches within communities may help generating a “reinforcing cycle” that builds on cultural recognition, social networks as well as routes to solidarity, collaboration and collective visioning or action. While we have pointed to aspects of creative engagement and the possibilities they open to micro-civic acts and cycles of symbolic recognition and self-organisation, we have also highlighted challenges stemming from essentialist premises, and stressed and importance of considering community capacity building frameworks in relation to wider systemic and societal contexts. Insights from research and practice also warn against specific assumptions concerning ‘community’ lacking a deep understanding of conflict, competition and controversy. Asset mapping approaches must therefore acknowledge the dialectical connections between collaborative forces and self-serving interests in communities, addressing these tensions both from a sociological, cultural and geographic framework.

Every city, neighbourhood, place, has the potential to be improved and regenerated. Regenerating places involves funding decisions, public provision, democratic processes, communication and deliberation. Improving cities involves competing interests, creative opposition and alternative propositions.

Building conditions for alternatives means addressing civic rights and resources, unearthing dreams, skills and talents for creativity, participation and solidarity. ‘Mapping’ and pulling together such resources can build capacities for community representation and enhance people’s power to influence change.

During 10 days in October 2014, Giota Alevizou and members of the research team came to Athens to talk to grass roots groups and civil society initiatives. We discussed challenges and aspirations, and learned from diverse activities and achievements. The video presents some aspects of the project as it was captured in a networking workshop and debate in Kypseli Cultural Centre on 4 October 2014.

Projects and conceptual frameworks

Figure 01

Across a range of fields of policy, practice and theory “a language of assets” (O’Leary et al, 2011, p. 6) is emerging. Whilst often traced, particularly in the North American context, to the concept of ‘asset-based community development’ or ABCD as outlined Kretzmann and McKnight (1993), asset based theories, strategies and methods can be seen to have a much longer and more diverse trajectory of development and application. It is also important to recognize that a critique of asset based theorisations is beginning to emerge (e.g. Emejulu, 2013; MacLeod and Emejulu, forthcoming), although arguably both the development and critique of asset-based approaches is hampered by the diversity and flexibility of the concept which, like many other concepts currently circulating in the area of social policy and community development, “mean both more and less” than is widely appreciated (Levitas, 2004, p. 41).

The promise and pitfalls of a language of assets is well demonstrated in the AHRS’s Connected Communities programme, and in my involvement in this programme. The language of assets has been formally adopted in two Connected Communities projects I have been a co-investigator on – namely Unearthing Hidden Assets (AH/K006541/1) and Co-designing Asset Mapping (AH/L013363/1) – but can also be seen to be applicable to a range of other projects, including Affect, affordance and connecting rural and urban communities (AH/I507736/1), Untold stories of volunteering (AH/K006576/1)), Revisiting the mid-point of British communities: a study of affect, affordance and connectivity in Glossop (AH/J006920/1), Ladders to the cloud (AH/J006734/1) and Community Web2.0: creative control through hacking (AH/I507620/1).

Reflecting on the employment of the language of assets within these projects highlights at least three issues. First, it has clearly been possible to apply the language to projects and situations that made use of a range of other theoretical framings. The research undertaken on Unearthing Hidden Assets, for example, has highlighted both theoretical and ‘in-the-field’ connections between the language of assets and those of capital, particularly social capital. The theoretical connections were not unexpected as part of the rationale for wanting to undertake this project was to further develop arguments I have been working on exploring the use of a language of assets to re-theorise notions of social class (see Phillips 2011, forthcoming). This work has highlighted how an emergent ‘asset-based theorisation of social class’ has emerged, often drawing on notions of social and cultural capital as theorised by Bourdieu (e.g. see Savage and Butler 1995; Savage et al, 2005; Bennett et al, 2004; Le Roux et al, 2008). Working with community partners from the Churches’ Regional Commission, and HealthWORKS Newcastle also quickly revealed that the concept of social capital had been significantly employed in health working in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with a North East Social Capital Forum being established in 2006 to employ the concept of social capital as “a practical tool for social and economic regeneration” (Schmuecker, 2008). Significantly in relation to notion of asset mapping, the forum and the East End Community Development Alliance, an umbrella organisation of over 90 organisations in the East End of Newcastle –upon-Tyne, undertook assessments as to their impacts in the constitution of social capital (Figure 1).

Figure 2: A disaggregated conception of social capital (Source: Phillips, forthcoming)

Social capital is, however, a “contested and congested concept” (Phillips, forthcoming), with a multiplicity of conceptions and little consensus as to the most desirable. It has also been criticised for making normative presumptions, such as people want to participate in social interaction and civic life (Portes 1998, 2000; Shorthall 2008). This is a criticism that Friedli (2012, p. 3) argues can also be applied to ABCD approaches which often implicitly assert the value of particular psychological attributes, such as “aspiration … [rather than] sufficiency and independence above solidarity”. Social capital approaches have also been criticised for facilitating the neglect of relations of power and thereby encouraging interpretations that in effect ‘blame the victim’ (e.g. Mohan and Mohan 2002; Harris 2001, Mayer and Rankin, 2002), or indeed champion the successful individuals or groups. Again, very similar criticisms are emerging around asset-based approaches more generally, with Friedli (2012, p. 2), for example, arguing that the asset based approaches have frequently acted to support “the attack on public sector provision, rather than addressing the health impact of corporate power”. A third area of criticism has been its effective instrumentalism of social life, and an associated neglect of its communicative and affective dimensions (e.g. Cloke et al 1995; Fine 1999, Anderson and Bell 2003).

For such reasons I have been personally reticent about using the concept of social capital, although recent has suggested that value in disaggregating the concept, recognizing that it may encompass and be supplemented by a range of assets including physical objects, ways of acting and being, formalised skills and intangible emotions and affects (see Figure 2). Focus group activities and discussions (Figure 3) clearly revealed the significance of this range of assets, as well as the important of what might be viewed as social capital assets.

Figure 3: Mapping assets in HealthWorks.

A second issue revealed in the research project Unearthing Hidden Assets was the value of considering assets as flows rather than a fixed, if changeable, stock. Whilst social capital is often seen as a vehicle for facilitating flows, particularly of information, it, and many other assets or forms of capital apart from economic capital, is rarely considered as flow. In the Unearthing Assets project, however, issues of asset flow became significant. So, for example, in 2013, the East End Community Development Alliance, which had been seen as an important vehicle in forming as well as assessing social capital, ceased to exist, raising questions as to what had happened to the social capital that had surrounded its operation. Had this social capital been simply ‘lost’, or had it been directed into alternative activities or transformed into other forms of assets? Mapping such flows and reconfiguration of assets, as well as the discovery of latent assets formed an emergent focus of the research being co-produced in association with HealthWorks and the Churches’ Regional Commission in the North East.

A third theoretical issue related to the concept of mapping assets. The term mapping within many studies of assets often refers to little more than creating an inventory of assets, although this is often created through participatory and creative ways that are themselves generative of social and cultural assets, such as senses and artefacts of collective belonging, identity and purpose. Whilst a central component of the current studies, coming from a geographical background, I also frequently made use of more geographical senses of mapping which sees maps as ways to perform and explore the spatialities of the socio-cultural assets, practices and relations. In all the AHRC studies listed in at the start to this section there has hence been a focus employing geographical senses of mapping, which has been undertaken through a variety of ways. Use, for example, has been made of geographical information system (GIS) software and gps tracking to map the social character and infrastructural assets of areas within the Unearthing Hidden Assets, Affect, affordance and connecting rural and urban communities and Revisiting the mid-point of British communities projects (see Figure 4). The last project also made considerable use of participatory and artistic methods of understanding and representing the spatialities of people’s senses of community (see Figure 5). In both cases, research adopted what has become identified as an iterative research methodology, whereby there are repeated movements between dimensions, moments or agents of research (see Phillips et al, 2014).

In the Revisiting the mid-point of British communities research project, semi-structured, mobile and psycho-social interviews were, for instance, used sequentially with issues raises in the initial two interviews being probed further in later interviews. The mobile interviews also demonstrated further moments of iteration as interviewees, and indeed interviewers, made reference to locational material encountered in the interview journeys to initiate, illustrate and refine interpretations (see de Leon and Cohen, 2005; Evans and Jones, 2011, p. 856; Jones et al., 2008; Kusenbach, 2003). Public mapping exercise and the development of a game based approach to community engagement and discussion also centrally employed notions of an iterative research method.

The game-based approach was particularly significant in relation to the project on mapping comparative approaches to asset mapping, with the game Glossopoly, created as part of the Revisiting the mid-point of British communities, research project being demonstrated at a workshop of project members and partner in London and employed with communities in the neighbourhoods of Kypselli and Dourgouti in Athens (See Figure 6). The rest of the discussion of asset mapping will very much focus upon the use of this game-focused approach.

Asset mapping and Glossopoly

Figure 7b: Glossopoly board.

The use of games for more than just play has become widespread, with so-called gamification – the use of “game-play mechanisms for non-game applications: Muntean, C. (2011, p. 323) becoming widespread, and particularly employed in relation to advertising and education and training (e.g. see Kapp 2012; Terlutter and Capella 2013). Whilst much emphasis is currently placed on on-line and digital mobile gaming, in disciplines such as geography there has also been a longer running interest in the use of board, card and other physical object-based games in education and learning (e.g. Warburton and Madge, 1994), as well as the use of simulations, role play and other embodied games (e.g. Cloke, 1987; Dalton et al., 1971; Davidson et al., 2009; Livingstone, 1999; Maddrell, 1994, 2007; Walford, 1981). Rather less attention, however, has been paid to their use in research.

In the case of the Revisiting the mid-point of British communities research project, use of a game-based approached emerged initially as a way engage school aged children in discussions of the character of places within the town of Glossop and surrounding areas and how these children related to them. Groups of children were asked to create drawings of places they knew to populate a monopoly board of the town (Figure 7a). During this activity they were encouraged to talk about the places they were drawing in order to elicit their views on their places and initiate discussions amongst the children about the character of life in Glossop. Subsequently these drawings were incorporated in a painted representation (Figure 7b), which children used to play a game of monopoly (Figure 7c). It was, however, felt that this board could itself be used as a vehicle for iterative investigation of the project’s research themes. Cards were created that, on one side, represented the views of people in Glossop as expressed in the research project, expressed through words or images, and on the reverse contained a question related to these views and requiring people to express their own viewpoints, either in words, writing or images (see Figure 7d).

 
Over the course of two years, this concept developed into a game entitled Glossopoly which has been employed in a variety of contexts, including demonstration sessions at three AHRC Connected Communities Showcase events (London, Edinburgh and Cardiff) and a Localities Action Camp (Staffordshire). A form of the game was employed in the Unearthing Hidden Assets project and the game is currently being developed for use by a range of community groups as part of an AHRC Legacies research project: Evaluating the Legacy of Animative and Iterative Connected Communities Projects (AHRC s. It was also played as noted earlier, within this comparative mapping project in workshops in London and Athens.

Figure 8a: Glossopoly in the Glossop Market.

The game has been used both as a means of facilitating engagement with research projects, being used, for example, at public events such as markets and carnivals (see Figure 8a) whereby it acts as a useful ice-breaker with conversations emerging as people take a few turns at playing the game. More substantive engagement with the game occurs when it has been used to facilitate group discussions. In such instances the game acts to provide a series of prompts for discussion, which, as in more conventional focus groups, can be recorded for further analysis, along with the written answers and drawings created by participants of the game (see Figure 8b). The game has also evolved to encompass more action focused discussions, through the incorporation of questions and activities which ask participants to think about potential solutions to issues raised in discussions. In the case of the game in Kypselli, for example, the game was re-designed to encourage participants to develop a project idea that would address multiple needs within the neighbourhood and involve a network of community and activist groups. Although not employed within these visits, a large-scale floor-based version of the game has also been developed which can be both played in a manner akin to the table-top version or employed methods associated with cultural animation (see Figure 8c).

Glossopoly and Contextual Conditions

The game Glossopoly initially emerged in a project focused on a very specific empirical and theoretical context. The project focused on a town that had been subject to a study (Birch, 1959) that played important roles in the emergence of community studies in Britain, not least through being incorporated in Frankenberg’s(1966) synthesis of a series of studies of community in Britain. Revisiting the mid-point of British communities sought to explore both how the character of community may have changed since the mid twentieth century but also how the study of community has changed over this period. In particular the study sought to explore how concepts of affect, affordance and connectivity could be used to understand the formation of senses of community and non-community. To aid this, Glossopoly was explicitly structured to address these theoretical concerns, with question cards incorporating research materials and questions connected to these conceptual concerns.

Figure 9b: Creating Dourgoutopoly.

However, as the preceding section has highlighted, Glossopoly has proved to extremely flexible, being employed in a variety of spatial contexts and for a range of different purposes. In part this flexibility has been achieved through conscious adaptation of the game to new contexts and purposes: in the visits to Athens, for example, site visits, informal interviews and secondary data sources were used to tailor the cards towards this new context and wishes of organisations involved in the comparative mapping project. Greater use of more open-style questions was also adopted to enable contextual concerns to emerge more directly. This illustrates how the game can be viewed as potentially self-contextualising in its adoption of an iterative approach whereby research materials and theoretical concerns are used as a means for stimulating further commentary and representations, which in themselves act as stimuli for further reflection and discussion. Playing games in series indeed allows material from early games to be directly incorporated into later games.
Partners and Types of Community Assets

Glossopoly was co-produced with one of the community partners in Revisiting the mid-point of British communities, namely High Peaks Community Arts. As discussed earlier, its genesis very much lay within this organisation’s art practice, although this is routinely combined with a concern for community development. Other organisations involved in the development and use of Glossopoly in this project include the Glossop and District Volunteer Centre and Glossopdale Community College.

As part of Evaluating the Legacy of Animative and Iterative Connected Communities Projects, a series of organisations have been invited to make use of Glossopoly. Discussions are also being held about potential use of the game within schools. In connection with this comparative mapping approaches project, an invitation was made by the Dourgouti Island Hotel project to run a workshop for residents and community groups in the Athens neighbourhood of Dourgouti. The workshop, included working with children and adults from the area to create a board with drawings of the area (see Figures 9a, 9b & 9c), as well as running a game with over 40 participants.

The Value and Outputs of Glossopoly

As noted above, Glossopoly has proved to be a highly flexible method for community engagement, research and asset mapping. A key element of this is its employment of an iterative approach where by people are required through the practice of play to engage with the views of other yet giving voice to their own interpretations. This provides as opportunities for refinement and deepening of interpretations, as well as engagement with others and opportunities to arrive at consensual understandings. It also, as outlined earlier, provides a mechanism for self-contextualisation, a feature very evident in the application of the game to two neighbourhoods in Athens. However, in both instances the contextualization was limited through constraints of time and language. Despite this, in both cases there were strong expressions as to the appropriateness of the research materials and questions to situations facing people in these Athens neighbourhoods. This raises the interesting question has to the degree to which people in seemingly quite different geographical and socio-cultural contexts may face very similar experiences and challenges. A challenge for further work using this game may be to explore such connections between communities.

Playing the game can generate a considerable amount of material for further analysis and discussion, particularly if there is audio and/or video recording of the game. Much of this material can be fed into further iterations of the game, although they can be used to develop other forms of analysis, interpretation and cultural expression. Further work is needed on how the game can be used to incorporate diverse and potentially conflictual perspectives, in terms of participants and/or in relation to the materials and questions contained within the game. The game has also been played with groups ranging from a couple of people playing as individuals through to, in the case of Dourgouti, over 40 people playing in groups. Whilst indicative of the games flexibility, further examination is needed on the dynamics and outcomes of the games when played with such different sized groups.

References

The Glass-House Community Led Design is an independent national charity that supports and promotes a more collaborative approach to design in placemaking as a means to improving the quality of our places and spaces to live, work and play. We are rooted in community leadership and participation, collaborative and inclusive processes and good design.

Our approach helps to unearth latent potential in the people and the places with which we work and supports a more holistic approach to looking at place. We provide groups with the tools that will support them to achieve their goals and kick start their process of change or improvement.

We have developed a range of tools and techniques to support people to unearth, identify and mobilise assets that can help them in their design journey. We are committed to developing approaches that are engaging and collaborative, allowing people of all ages and abilities to participate and contribute. Different techniques are used based on the specific needs and abilities of a group and the individuals within it.

Some approaches include:

• Contextual mapping exercises that look at the physical place (and its surroundings) that a project is seeking to improve, perhaps with a thematic focus such as movement and transport, infrastructure and public services, to help identify where there are opportunities or issues. Used in our support to Fountainbridge Canalside Initiative in Edinburgh, these exercises help to bring together stakeholders to build an understanding of the qualities of a place and explore future opportunities for a neighbourhood.
• A ‘How is it working’ walkabout which helps people to start looking at and connect with their place in a different way and uncover how places work. This approach, which builds multiple layers of information about local assets while moving around a place, offers an informal and accessible approach to local asset mapping. This approach helped the village of Kirdford (http://www.theglasshouse.org.uk/projectshowcase/kirdford-community-led-plan/) in West Sussex to identify key issues around movement and transport and explore how simple improvements in the public realm infrastructure could be addressed in a community-led plan.
• Study Tours that take groups to similar projects from which they can extract learning and inspiration. During Study Tours participants are encouraged to map their reactions to what they are seeing and learning, talk to others participants and guides and share experiences, and build their aspirations for their own projects.
• Mapping potential partners and competitors, clients and beneficiaries in relation to the place they hope to transform. This is an essential part of both design brief development and business development to ensure the viability and sustainability of their project. It also helps identify partners and collaborators that will be valuable assets to their projects. As part of a visioning process for The Winchester Project in Swiss Cottage, we used asset mapping to link their physical assets to the needs of staff and beneficiaries in order to inform both a new business plan and the design brief for a refurbishment of their premises

“I like how I get to learn and think about things in a new way.”
(Feedback from participant in an Open Spaces Study Tour in 2014).

Over the past four years, we have taken an active role in collaborative research with higher education institutions (including a strategic partnership with the Design Group at the Open University). This work has allowed us to test new approaches, extract replicable models and frameworks and develop resources that can be shared with a wider audience.

In the Unearth Hidden Assets through Community Co-Design and Co-Production project, The Glass-House and partners used existing asset mapping methodologies and developed new approaches to support the Tidworth Mums group to build a network of play stakeholders to back the case for soft play in Tidworth. An asset mapping exercise (drawn from a previous research project ‘Media, Community and the Creative Citizen’) asked participants to map what they consider as their current and potential assets under six categories – spaces, infrastructure, media, groups/organisations, individuals and other – on concentric circles according to their relative importance and/or accessibility. A Play Study Tour, Play Engagement Day and a business planning workshop all contributed to helping the group to widen the conversation about play in their area, build skills and confidence to help achieve their goals and test and develop their ideas with supporters and stakeholders. The project gave members of the groups “more confidence and the courage to believe that they could make a difference, and also provided tools and techniques to help us clarify our objectives and how to better realise them.”

Following the end of the project, we produced a ‘Tidworth Mums: A Case for Soft Play’ Resource Pack ( A5 Booklet Spreads & Tools ) which contains a set of tools and prompts that could support and inspire other groups who want to create playful environments in their neighbourhoods.

Asset-based approaches are not only valuable in direct support to placemaking projects but also in scaling up the impact of our work by cross pollinating with other organisations as happened through our participation in the Scaling up Co-Design collaborative research project. A process of ‘cross-pollination’ which saw partners explore how combining elements of their work with that of others could strengthen their own project, brought new resources and approaches to partners’ work and benefitted the communities we were supporting and our practices as organisations. This work has heightened our awareness of our assets, our networks and how these help us broaden our asset base and use those assets to greater effect.

Our work in this project also empowered those whom we supported to become ambassadors and enablers of co-design and of our practices. The Silent Cities’ Community Journalists who experienced a Glass-House workshop on place and then helped facilitate a workshop with young people with The Glass-House and Silent Cities, moved from the trainee to the trainer, and were empowered and enabled champions of what they had been taught.

We were keen to share this approach to asset mapping and cross-pollination, and to make it available to others. At the Scaling Up Co-Design Showcase event in May 2014, one of the participants described the approach as “transformational”, and said that she would like to introduce it to her practice. (more on this at theglasshouse.org.uk).

There is no doubt that asset mapping is an essential step in building awareness and confidence when moving projects and organisations forward. In our work as a support organisation, it is a valuable tool in helping the groups we support realise their aspirations and their potential. It has also been essential to us as an organisation, supporting our committed approach to collaborative working, but most importantly helping us to mobilise our assets, and to create new ones in order to help us help communities.