Ältere als (Ko-)Produzenten von Quartiersnetzwerken im Ruhrgebiet. Evaluationsbericht des Projekts "QuartiersNETZ"

This report presents the objectives, phases, methods and results of the evaluation sub-project of the project "Older people as (co-)producers of neighborhood networks in the Ruhr area (QuartiersNETZ)", which was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research from November 2014 to October 2018. The aim of the joint project in the "Health and service regions of tomorrow" funding line was to establish and implement neighborhood-related participation, cooperation and support structures (neighborhood networks) in four neighborhoods in the Ruhr city of Gelsenkirchen with the participation of older citizens and other stakeholders. This should guarantee the possibility of participation and involvement in the life of the neighborhood for (older) people from all walks of life. These "real" neighborhood networks were to be supported by digital, technical artefacts - also developed in a participatory manner. The aim of the evaluation was to ensure the quality of the processes and results. The evaluation sub-project, based at the Faculty of Applied Social Studies at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences, was responsible for the inventory, formative and summative evaluation. It examined the extent to which participation in the development of neighborhood networks and neighborhood-related digital, technical artefacts is successful and to what extent different or which population groups are reached with the participation formats and the structures developed. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used for this purpose. It should be emphasized that this evaluation report is limited to the presentation of the results of the summative evaluation, and here primarily to the results of a final survey of participants in the so-called neighbourhood conferences, as the results of the inventory, the formative evaluation and parts of the summative evaluation have already been presented in detail in other publications. The (summative) evaluation has shown that structures that initiate, manage and support neighborhood development processes can make an important contribution to good (co)living in the neighborhood. Local, low-threshold and continuous participation formats, such as neighbourhood conferences, contribute to informing residents, have a social, community-building function, strengthen dialogue and exchange, enable activation and empowerment processes, etc. Compared to other participation formats (e.g. city-wide working groups for the development of a digital platform), participation formats in the immediate residential environment, in which concerns that affect the neighborhood and ideas for the development or design of the neighborhood can be introduced (e.g. neighborhood conferences), reach relatively heterogeneous groups of residents, although not all of them.

Evaluation

Gelsenkirchen

Participation

Neighborhood development

Neighborhood conference