ABSTRACT
Across England, schools are working innovatively with other organisations to provide wide-ranging support to, and with, their local communities. In recent years, children’s zone-style initiatives have been among the most extensive developments of these kinds. These comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs) are place-based strategies, working in highly marginalised neighbourhood contexts. They seek to develop a continuous ‘pipeline’ of holistic support for children and families, throughout their schooling, and in their school, family, and community contexts. Typically, zones also build on the legacy of England’s previous extended schools initiatives, and on contemporary developments from the United States including the Harlem Children’s Zone.
This chapter defines and contextualises CCIs and discusses challenges and opportunities arising from one such initiative – Newcastle’s West End Children’s Community (WECC). This involves an alliance of schools, community members, local charities, cultural and health organisations, the local authority, and a university. It is a loose area-based network formed organically. Data are presented from an embedded, co-produced, action-research project which informs the Community’s ongoing development. Our analysis is primarily at the meso-level with regard to both the macro and micro. The WECC primarily offers universal and selected strategies. The concepts of relational agency and expertise, and assets-based development, are used to explore the partnerships, strategies, and actions, emerging through CCIs. This chapter concludes that children’s zones raise fundamental questions about whether or not schools and their partners can play a transformative role in developing innovative responses to mitigating the impacts of social and economic inequality, the importance of a transparent and effective governance structure, the involvement of additional partners, the adoption of strategic indicators, and how policy can support all these.
