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Barbara Barningham is our Project Manager and Community
Worker and is responsible for the various projects which
are running on Hollin at the moment and those planned
for the future.
Barbara is currently funded by Comic Relief and the European Regional
Development Fund. Her job is to help and encourage
tenants and residents on the estate to become more
involved in decision making, to help them find work and
generally improve their circumstances whilst living on
Hollin Estate. Barbara is also a tenant on Hollin and
does voluntary work relating to housing matters and is
Chair of the Middleton Area Board.
Barbara has lots of hats to wear to do her job. Some of
them are as follows:
à
Chair of
Hollin Sure Start Management Group. This group is
currently setting up as a business which will run the
new Hollin Sure Start nursery which is due to open in
January/February 2005.
à
Manager of
the After School Club which will be starting at Hollin
Primary School in January 2005.
à
Co-ordinator of the Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy for
Hollin. This is a massive task wherein everyone on
Hollin will be asked to give their opinions on the
services which are being provided within the headings of
Health, Crime, Education, Employment and Young People.
To do this Barbara and the NRS team for Hollin have done
a questionnaire to cover all these areas and find out
what people think. Once the questionnaires have been
received and evaluated some focus groups will be set up
to look into problem areas more closely. Eventually all
the results will be taken back to the service providers
such as the Police and Health Service, etc. to see how
they can improve their services.
Hopefully, there will be
some ‘quick wins’ money which can be spent on improving
the area and looking at providing areas for young people
to try and reduce youth nuisance and youth crime.
à
Is a
member of the Employment and Training Group of the Major
Investment Programme which is improving the RBH homes to
‘Decent Standard’. This group looks at how many people
are employed by the two major contractors to ensure that
the Key Performance Indicators are met and as many
people as possible are employed from the Rochdale area. The group also looks at areas where there is a skills shortage
and looks at ways to filling this gap.
à
Attends
all Pre-contract and Progress meetings regarding the
work which is being carried out on all Council
properties in the Hollin area to ensure that all
complaints are dealt with and that the work is carried
out to an excellent standard.
à
Works with
the Youth Link team who are based in the HEMB office.
This is a team of three who provide one-to-one mentoring
for young people from year 11 at school to 19 years old.
– A Youth Link page will be set up soon giving more
details about this service.
à
Is a
member of the Sure Start Partnership.
à
Is a
Director of Streetcred. Streetcred is a Boroughwide
Credit Union and is growing on a daily basis.
à
Is a
Director of Real Deal. This is an employment agency
with a special leaning towards training. This business
(which is now a registered charity) has been running for
a couple of years and is a prize winning company. It
has helped many people find full-time permanent
employment through training and temporary work.
à
Whenever
she has some spare time (!) Barbara also helps people
who are looking for employment. She will help with
writing CVs and completing application forms as well as
helping with interview techniques and job search.
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