Meeting in the Welcome Centre this evening with Dr Rachel Chapman, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Northumbria (in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne). Rachel is involved in a research project commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, looking at how Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) have been promoting equalities and how they have been engaging with locally-based equalities groups. She's considering case studies, identifying good practice and seeing how much of that good practice could be shared. She's interested in asking us what we've learned from our experience of working with our LSP and how much of what we've learned could be transferred elsewhere.
The main experience that Leicester Council of Faiths has of working with our Local Strategic Partnership is, of course, in our capacity as the Host Organisation for Communities of Interest in relation to religion and belief.
There are seven of us gathered round the table: Julie-Anne Heath, Alan Race, Resham Singh Sandhu and his wife Surinder (who, while not a member of the Council of Faiths, can speak for the Sikh Welfare and Cultural Society), Manjula Sood (our Chair, who arrives after an hour or so) and Gursharan Thandi. Gursharan is the focus for most of Rachel's questions, as she is one of the two representatives on Leicester Partnership for Communities of Interest in relation to religion and belief. The meeting lasts just over two hours (Julie-Ann and Gursharan have brought food and drink). I think we respond in interesting and varied ways to Rachel's questions. She's treating us as a focus group, recording our conversation on a small digital device. She's going to write up a report, anonymising our comments. She may be back in the future to do some follow-up work with us.
To read the published report ("The role of Local Strategic Partnerships and Local Area Agreements in promoting equalities") click on the link below:
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