Community |

In A Fix? Welfare Cuts and Consumer Society »

Designer dresses; watching the football; or pizza, potato wedges and a litre of Coke – a treat can come in many forms, but the underlying value is the same. The secret of success in a consumer society is that there’s a price and a product for whatever you can afford: a £1000 Vivienne Westwood creation [...]

March 6, 2013 | Posted in Pictures,Policy | Read More »

The Drugs Don’t Work »

The drugs don’t work. No painkiller beats dealing with the source of the pain. No opiate can deliver a high as sustainably as our own bodies can. This would be a matter for each of us to work out for ourselves, except that the full cost of drug abuse is not just paid by the [...]

June 25, 2012 | Posted in Pictures,Policy | Read More »

Cooking with Community Involvement »

American sociologist Sherry Arnstein came up with the idea of a ladder to represent approaches to community involvement as successive rungs towards ‘citizen empowerment’ 40 years ago. But is ‘empowerment’ always the most important aim of community involvement. And is more community involvement always the right ingredient for better public services? Successful public services are [...]

May 28, 2012 | Posted in Ideas | Read More »

Community Resilience and Self Help »

Chamberlain Forum’s 2011-12 programme focuses on Community Resilience and Self-Help.

March 19, 2012 | Posted in Policy | Read More »

Community First Neighbourhood Matched Fund »

The Community First Neighbourhood Matched fund launched by Community Development Foundation (on behalf of government) in October (see background story) will be opening for business in eligible areas across England over the next few weeks. In Birmingham, panels of local community, business and public sector reps have already been set up in most wards. These [...]

January 14, 2012 | Posted in Featured,News | Read More »

Community First – Where and How? »

Community First is the new £80m government-funded programme that will run for four years, until March 2015. Despite some quirks relating to where the new fund will be available, it might actually ‘do what it says on the tin’ and start, in a small way, the practice of putting communities in the driving seat.

October 6, 2011 | Posted in Featured,News | Read More »

What We Do

Chamberlain Forum helps civil society and local authorities to coproduce better places to live. We are non-profit, politically independent and proudly based in Birmingham.

We organise Chamberlain Lectures featuring speakers including Prime Minister David Cameron. We also organise Resident University - a peer and shared learning programme for people who live and work in neighbourhoods.

We promote and develop community networks as social capital builders, including by supporting Community Network 4 Birmingham

We support action to strengthen local civil society including through: community asset transfers; neighbourhood websites; mediation and facilitation; training and business planning.

We organise action research into aspects of coproduction and are delivering an 18 month programme, Communities Managing Change, funded by Barrow Cadbury Trust.

Chamberlain Forum Limited acts as a consultancy delivering a wide range of 'thinking and doing' services for clients including local authorities, housing associations, development trusts, health and social care bodies, local strategic partnerships and voluntary and community groups.