Teresa Smith, Kate Coxon and George Smith have written a comprehensive report on The Barton Project which was set up by my father, Phil Evens, in 1974. The Barton Neighbourhood Community Project: Barton, Oxford City and Oxfordshire is published by Oxford Social Research Ltd and the introduction to the report outlines its scope:
'The Barton Neighbourhood Community Project was first established on the Barton estate,
Oxford in 1974. The initiative for the project came from a lecturer, Phil Evens, in the
University of Oxford’s Department of Social and Administrative Studies (known as ‘Barnett
House’) which had a long history of local research and local involvement, and was in the late
1960s and early 1970s closely involved in major national government programmes targeted at
disadvantaged areas in the UK. Evens persuaded his Department that they should also support
a local initiative and selected the Barton estate as an area that had been neglected (A
‘Forgotten Community’ was the title of his 1976 book). Barton is a small social housing
estate on the eastern edge of Oxford city, outside the main city ring road, that cut it off from
the rest of the city.
It can be argued that in one form or other the Barton Project has existed ever since, though
the University passed on the direct link in the 1990s to Ruskin College when the project’s
community work student training unit was transferred; the project’s welfare rights work,
Oxfordshire Welfare Rights, is now funded and managed by a local community work agency.
While this report focuses on the community work on Barton now and the current social and
economic conditions on the Barton estate, the study also covers some of the changes and
developments that have occurred both in the area and in the way community work has
operated in disadvantaged areas like the Barton estate.
In the opening section we cover some of the wider background to the development of
neighbourhood community work in the UK and analyse the social and economic conditions
in the Barton area in comparison to Oxford, Oxfordshire and England as a whole. The second
section focuses on the Barton Neighbourhood Project in terms of its development over time
and its current programme of work. Further case studies of particular schemes are also
covered. Finally we ask whether the Barton Estate is any longer a ‘forgotten community’, and
draw out lessons and conclusions that may be relevant to other areas in the UK and elsewhere.'
Dad's experiences and other contributions to the development of community work were published in Community Work: Theory and practice (1974) and The Barton Project (1976). Both books applied his Christian faith to his work, and called for the active involvement of Christians in community work and other public services. My other posts about Dad and his work can be found by clicking here.
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U2 - Bad.
Showing posts with label social work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social work. Show all posts
Friday, 4 August 2017
Saturday, 25 June 2016
Bob Holman & Phil Evens: Affluence and position as inconsistent with Christian faith
In 1970 my father, Phil Evens, entered social-work education by becoming a lecturer in applied social studies at Oxford University. There, he discovered that he did not fit into the exclusive network of “North Oxbridge Society”, and so he moved nearer to his ideological home and working-class identity by setting up an Applied Action Research Community Work Project in 1973. It was called the Barton Project, after the council estate on which it was based.
His experiences and other contributions to the development of community work were published in Community Work: Theory and practice (1974) and The Barton Project (1976). Both books applied his Christian faith to his work, and called for the active involvement of Christians in community work and other public services.
Similarly in 1976, Bob Holman 'resigned his professorship in social administration at Bath University to become a community worker on the city’s deprived Southdown estate. He saw his affluence and position as inconsistent with his Christian faith. He and his wife, Annette, and their two children, Ruth and David, moved from a comfortable middle-class area in the city to a home next to the estate and he started the project where he then worked.'
In 1976, the Barton Project project lost funding, and my father's job was restructured away. He returned, somewhat disillusioned, to his roots in Somerset, where he became self-employed as a landscape gardener. During this mid-life crisis, he and his family began worshipping for the first time in the C of E, and he continued, as he had done for many years, to set up and run Christian youth clubs. Involvement in wider aspects of Anglican ministry led to his call to train for ordination.
At Trinity College, Bristol, he set up the Voice of the People Trust, to sponsor Christian ministry in urban priority areas through community-work projects linked to parishes. Work on the trust was carried out in conjunction with his ministry, first, as a curate at Aston Parish Church, and then as Vicar of St Edmund’s, Tyesley.
'After a decade in Bath, in 1987 [Bob Holman] went to live and work on the vast and deprived Easterhouse estate in Glasgow. He always wanted to show what could be done to motivate and involve people and bring communities together. Bob spurned any distinction between himself and other residents, calling himself a “resourceful friend”. His daily work involved filling in social security forms, accompany young people to court or helping a neighbour to raise a loan for a new cooker.'
Holman, who died on 15 June, became a regular contributor to the Guardian which published some extracts from his writing following his death:
'I will not lose my Christianity. It came before my socialism. The example and values of Jesus Christ led me to seek a societal implementation through politics. The writings of Richard Tawney and the practices of Keir Hardie and George Lansbury led me into the Labour party. But Christianity is more than politics. It will be with me to the end.'
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Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals - All That Has Grown.
His experiences and other contributions to the development of community work were published in Community Work: Theory and practice (1974) and The Barton Project (1976). Both books applied his Christian faith to his work, and called for the active involvement of Christians in community work and other public services.
Similarly in 1976, Bob Holman 'resigned his professorship in social administration at Bath University to become a community worker on the city’s deprived Southdown estate. He saw his affluence and position as inconsistent with his Christian faith. He and his wife, Annette, and their two children, Ruth and David, moved from a comfortable middle-class area in the city to a home next to the estate and he started the project where he then worked.'
In 1976, the Barton Project project lost funding, and my father's job was restructured away. He returned, somewhat disillusioned, to his roots in Somerset, where he became self-employed as a landscape gardener. During this mid-life crisis, he and his family began worshipping for the first time in the C of E, and he continued, as he had done for many years, to set up and run Christian youth clubs. Involvement in wider aspects of Anglican ministry led to his call to train for ordination.
At Trinity College, Bristol, he set up the Voice of the People Trust, to sponsor Christian ministry in urban priority areas through community-work projects linked to parishes. Work on the trust was carried out in conjunction with his ministry, first, as a curate at Aston Parish Church, and then as Vicar of St Edmund’s, Tyesley.
'After a decade in Bath, in 1987 [Bob Holman] went to live and work on the vast and deprived Easterhouse estate in Glasgow. He always wanted to show what could be done to motivate and involve people and bring communities together. Bob spurned any distinction between himself and other residents, calling himself a “resourceful friend”. His daily work involved filling in social security forms, accompany young people to court or helping a neighbour to raise a loan for a new cooker.'
Holman, who died on 15 June, became a regular contributor to the Guardian which published some extracts from his writing following his death:
'I will not lose my Christianity. It came before my socialism. The example and values of Jesus Christ led me to seek a societal implementation through politics. The writings of Richard Tawney and the practices of Keir Hardie and George Lansbury led me into the Labour party. But Christianity is more than politics. It will be with me to the end.'
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Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals - All That Has Grown.
Friday, 19 December 2014
ImageUpdate 2014 Top Ten
'ImageUpdate select an annual Top Ten list from the over one hundred books, films, albums, visual art collections, and even television shows shared in the e-newsletter each year. ImageUpdate strives to direct readers attention to new and emerging artists.
Holy Heathen Rhapsody by Pattiann Rogers
Its impossible not to feel reverence when you read Holy Heathen Rhapsody, Pattiann Rogers latest collection. Rogers poems are as variegated as the world they witness, but still controlled, graceful with their details.
Arts & Entertainments by Christopher Beha
Arts & Entertainments is a charming, composed work that, in its best moments, recalls Vonnegut and Kafka. Beha demonstrates the consequences of godless men playing God.
My Brightest Diamond: This Is My Hand
Shara Worden offers herself on this album like wine pouring out to thee, for thee, and in doing so her persona possesses the same astronomical dimensions as any pop stars, but the direction of her work is toward gifting her listeners rather than building an image upon their devotion.
Make Me a Mother by Susanne Antonetta
Antonetta's adoption of a five-month-old Korean boy named Jin is set in the larger context of her dysfunctional family history including the challenges and joys of balancing nurture for her young son and the obligation of taking care of aging parents.
Trying to Get a Sense of Scale by Tim Lowly
This handsomely-printed art book, produced in conjunction with an exhibition of paintings by artist Tim Lowly, not only chronicles a large body of work by a distinguished practitioner, but serves as a profound, poignant journey into the meaning of life, love, identity, and beauty.
I Watched You Disappear by Anya Silver
In I Watched You Disappear, we move with Anya Krugovoy Silver as she touches and wonders the world in her poems: the pain of cancer, heft of ripe fruit, beauty of her sons legs, the heart / like a shattered peony, / musky petal after petal / unpeeling, pealing.
Tailings by Kaethe Schwehn
When she was just twenty-two, Kaethe Schwehn decided to spend the better part of a year at a remote retreat center in the Cascade Mountains known as Holden Village. What makes Tailings, Schwehn's account of this year, so compelling is a trick only the best memoirs can pull off: the doubleness of telling a story from the past through the mind of a gifted writer in the present.
The Soil & the Sun: Meridian
The Soil & the Sun is not shy about variety, nor creating bold, artful confusions of sounds. Neither are they shy about their intentions with the record, telling Paste, Meridian is about life and death, mystery, love, selfishness, God, technocracy, sorrow, the end of the world, and the fate of mankind.
The Red List by Stephen Cushman
Stephen Cushman's The Red List (another name for the Endangered Species List) dives boldly into the modern worlds wide-ranging forms of endangerment. Cushman's journey through 21st century hyper-connection leads reader and speaker through a complex landscape fragmented by anxiety, grief, and uncertainty.
Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson
Social work lit utilizes a public servant as protagonist, a police officer for example or in Henderson's book, a lonely social worker in rural Montana called Pete Snow. Snow spends his days helping broke-down families while his own family has been thrashed and tossed to the wind.
Image donors have built a formerly scrappy upstart organization into a resourceful community where world-class art can be showcased and fostered. And helpful, informative services like ImageUpdate can be provided for free.'
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My Brightest Diamond - Be Brave.
Holy Heathen Rhapsody by Pattiann Rogers
Its impossible not to feel reverence when you read Holy Heathen Rhapsody, Pattiann Rogers latest collection. Rogers poems are as variegated as the world they witness, but still controlled, graceful with their details.
Arts & Entertainments by Christopher Beha
Arts & Entertainments is a charming, composed work that, in its best moments, recalls Vonnegut and Kafka. Beha demonstrates the consequences of godless men playing God.
My Brightest Diamond: This Is My Hand
Shara Worden offers herself on this album like wine pouring out to thee, for thee, and in doing so her persona possesses the same astronomical dimensions as any pop stars, but the direction of her work is toward gifting her listeners rather than building an image upon their devotion.
Make Me a Mother by Susanne Antonetta
Antonetta's adoption of a five-month-old Korean boy named Jin is set in the larger context of her dysfunctional family history including the challenges and joys of balancing nurture for her young son and the obligation of taking care of aging parents.
Trying to Get a Sense of Scale by Tim Lowly
This handsomely-printed art book, produced in conjunction with an exhibition of paintings by artist Tim Lowly, not only chronicles a large body of work by a distinguished practitioner, but serves as a profound, poignant journey into the meaning of life, love, identity, and beauty.
I Watched You Disappear by Anya Silver
In I Watched You Disappear, we move with Anya Krugovoy Silver as she touches and wonders the world in her poems: the pain of cancer, heft of ripe fruit, beauty of her sons legs, the heart / like a shattered peony, / musky petal after petal / unpeeling, pealing.
Tailings by Kaethe Schwehn
When she was just twenty-two, Kaethe Schwehn decided to spend the better part of a year at a remote retreat center in the Cascade Mountains known as Holden Village. What makes Tailings, Schwehn's account of this year, so compelling is a trick only the best memoirs can pull off: the doubleness of telling a story from the past through the mind of a gifted writer in the present.
The Soil & the Sun: Meridian
The Soil & the Sun is not shy about variety, nor creating bold, artful confusions of sounds. Neither are they shy about their intentions with the record, telling Paste, Meridian is about life and death, mystery, love, selfishness, God, technocracy, sorrow, the end of the world, and the fate of mankind.
The Red List by Stephen Cushman
Stephen Cushman's The Red List (another name for the Endangered Species List) dives boldly into the modern worlds wide-ranging forms of endangerment. Cushman's journey through 21st century hyper-connection leads reader and speaker through a complex landscape fragmented by anxiety, grief, and uncertainty.
Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson
Social work lit utilizes a public servant as protagonist, a police officer for example or in Henderson's book, a lonely social worker in rural Montana called Pete Snow. Snow spends his days helping broke-down families while his own family has been thrashed and tossed to the wind.
Image donors have built a formerly scrappy upstart organization into a resourceful community where world-class art can be showcased and fostered. And helpful, informative services like ImageUpdate can be provided for free.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Brightest Diamond - Be Brave.
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