21st Century Settlement

There are histories, not one history. The settlement movement provides the foundation of social work. It helped shape Clement Attlee into a reforming prime minister. The movement has long been a bridge between advantaged academia and disadvantaged communities. These and other histories have been and continue to be written. The interest and focus here is…

Settlements were not built on linear processes that link inputs to outputs to outcomes and impact. This formula was not available to the founders, who did not find the need to find an alternative. Settlement Chief Executive Mike Wilson has a strong interest in the work of philosopher Gillian Rose. In her work, and in…

As explained in the long history, the arts and social clubs have been core to the settlement movement. Pembroke House’s first four activities in the 19th century were a mothers’ meeting, a ‘Happy Evening’ for 9-13 old boys, a boys’ club for 14-18 years and a penny bank. Jane Addams wrote about the value of…

The unique aspect of a settlement, the feature that marks it apart from practically all other civil society activity, is for young people, generally graduates of prestigious universities, to be resident. The settlement can accommodate up to six residents at any one time in a house adjacent to the main building. The residents give five…

The Walworth Living Room is an attempt to develop the settlement approach into new spaces. The work takes place 500 metres away from Pembroke House in an old church hall (into which the Settlement decanted when the building was being refurbished in 2010 -see entry 20). The first draft of the learning from the Walworth…

Sonia Kneepkens is a social designer and researcher. She took over responsibility for the lunch club that has run at Pembroke House for nearly a decade. Here she describes the application of Method-C combined with her own skills and tools to learning about how this routine event. The lunch club and its history The lunch…

Frances Foley is a resident at Pembroke House. She led the 2019 annual street party organised by the settlement. She used Method-C described in the previous entry (24) as a guide. Here is her report on the event. Pembroke House (PH) Street Party report – August 2019, Frances Foley In this reflection on the street…

How do we learn from repetitive events? Much of the activity in a settlement fits this description. A method had been developed by Ali Kaviani and Nina Feldman to learn from and improve their dance club activities. This paper codifies this approach, and illustrates how it was applied by resident Frances Foley to the annual…

The following reoccurring ideas helped informed decisions about how to adapt and enhance the Living Room. Externalities This idea is drawn from economics. In that discipline price is a function of supply and demand. The demand for goods can be disrupted by externalities, variables other than whether the good is needed. Take collective perception of…

How much will citizens use the Walworth Living Room? We have three sources of data on which to draw: (1) actual use during the prototyping phase; (2) demand for public spaces; (3) potential Living Room supply. Actual Use During the autumn of 2019, the design team recorded visitors and conversations taking place between visitors in…