The Horace

Petty

Estate

Social Atlas

Contents
Acknowledgements Introduction Methodology The context The stories i) The People ii) The Skills iii) The Services iv) The Community Groups Recommendations References

2 The Horace Petty Estate Social Atlas

Acknowledgements
The Port Phillip Community Group wishes to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the Land on which this report was written. We also want to acknowledge the financial contribution of the City of Stonnington towards the initial mapping of the Horace Petty Estate. We extend our thanks to the residents of the Estate for their time, their stories and participation in the creation of this Report. In particular, we wish to thank Anna Ruffat, chairperson of the South Yarra Tenants Association; Milan Melisik for his ongoing commitment to promoting the project; Ursula Bayer for the continued support, Yargeniy Krepky and Bob (aka god) for volunteering for just about anything. Special thanks to Michael Chew for his artistic and creative input, Judy Avisar for sharing her knowledge and contacts on the Estate and Nick Gabb for his support and his unswerving dedication to the young people residing at the Horace Petty Estate.

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Introduction
Welcome to the Horace Petty Estate Social Atlas Project. The project was born from a City of Stonnington small seeding-grant made available to the Port Phillip Community Group to research through creative engagement activities, significant aspects of life on the Horace Petty public housing estate. The primary objectives of the project were to develop the initial stages of a social atlas documenting the meaning of relationships, experiences of place, and the wealth of human resources present among the residents on the estate. The purpose was to provide some insight as to how a longer-term community development project might be established at the Horace Petty Estate. The research activities were rolled out over a period of six week during 2010, for approximately 30 hours per week, by two community development workers, one community artist and a project coordinator, all of whom were assisted by a number of community members living and working on the estate. Given the brevity and small scale resources allocated to the project, it is important to point out that the research was never meant to become a comprehensive mapping of the Horace Petty Estate community. Most of the information collected, in the form of stories, photographs and drawing was anecdotal and freely contributed by the participants during formal and informal activities. The back-drop of the project rests on the Federal and State Governments plans for a proposed $62 million new development at the Prahran housing estate, which comprise the Horace Petty Estate, and the implementation of a Neighbourhood Renewal project. The later will see the introduction of a place management team based at the estate, for an initial period of three years. The facilitators of this project organised a series of meetings/ workshops to take place at the estate as well as going out to existing groups and meeting with, community leaders, their constituencies and community members to collect their ideas about what a social atlas may look like. From the initial meeting a core group of interested residents of the estate committed their time to engage other community members, co-facilitate workshops and promote activities. This core group remained committed to the project until its completion. The phrase this is your community, get involved came out of the discussion at the very first meeting held at the estate.

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The methodology
The initial project plan was to gather stories in the form of photographs, drawings, video recordings and anecdotal information, from residents of the Horace Petty Estate to create a Social Atlas. This was to be done through a series of workshops to be held on the Estate in the community room on Friday evenings, over a period of four weeks. From the outset it was clear that the time and resources allocated to the project were minimal and insufficient to afford a true and systematic approach to community engagement and participation. Therefore, the expectations of the outcomes from the activities planned, and the information gathered to map the community, needed to be commensurate to the resources invested in the project. With this in mind, the project team concluded, and agreed, that the best possible outcome could be no more than a concise snapshot of the life of the Horace Petty Estate. For a more comprehensive and inclusive community mapping, a significant increase in resources and timeframe should be invested. The workshops welcomed participation from residents, workers and other interested individuals associated with the estate. This was to be undertaken by two community development workers, employed to maintain a presence on the estate for approximately 10 hours a week. Their primary role was to mobilise stakeholders to engage in a narrative sharing process. The material and resources for the workshops comprised a very large aerial photograph of the Horace Petty Estate; disposable cameras; digital cameras and tripod; painting, drawing and writing materials; sundry stationery and catering chattels. Computers, telephones, printing, photocopying and other technical support were provided by the Port Phillip Community Group (PPCG). The aerial photograph: The Horace Petty Estate aerial photograph consisted of four A0 size (approx.) segments showing the entire estate. During the workshops the participants would use the photograph to identify their homes and locations of their interests, relating stories, anecdotes and occurrences connected to particular places. These were recorded and attached to the map. When the stories involved other community members, or similar experiences were shared, ,the entries were linked to demonstrate the connectivity and shared experience among the residents of the estate. Photography: During the workshops, digital and disposable cameras were made available to the participants to record their own stories and/or depict aspects of life on the estate. In many instances, participants were not confident to take the cameras to use at their own convenience, preferring to leave it to the coordinating team to take portraits and other photographs during the project.

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The disposable cameras were mainly used by younger participants, who produced a number of images relating to their relationships with friends on the estate and activities in and around the community room. Painting & Drawing: This aspect of the project was popular with the younger participants who made full use of the materials (crayons, paper, texta pens) allocated for creative representation of their lives and experiences living on the Estate.. Story writing: To keep records of stories related by the participants, two methods were employed. Firstly, for longer narratives, facilitators kept notes and minutes to be later transcribed and added to the final report. Secondly a brief questionnaire was developed to elicit shorter accounts of life on the estate which participants were able to complete in a single session. The story component comprised of four questions: 1. What is it like living at Horace Petty? 2. A specific happy experience at Horace Petty I would like to share 3. A specific sad experience at Horace Petty I would like to share 4. What specific improvements would I like to see at Horace Petty? A skill register was also developed to collect information on the range of skills held by the residents of the estate. It is the assessment of the facilitators that the Friday workshops had limited success due to a range of factors. For cultural and religious reasons many people living on the Estate could not participate in activities on Friday evenings; the community room at Horace Petty was pre-booked by a regular activity for this time, and participants of that activity were reluctant to relinquish their time slot. However, alternative workshops were held at times when the community room was available, which proved more convenient to the interested residents and did not clash with per-organised activities. Other challenges were faced by the team, in their capacity to attract greater numbers of participants to the workshops. Firstly, the extremely short time frame of the project meant reduced opportunities for outreach and promotion of the project to tenants. Perhaps most significantly, was the communication limitations created by language. As the overwhelming majority of residents were of Russian or Chinese speaking backgrounds, the unavailability of interpreters; which would have enabled greater understanding and participation in sessions for people of non-English speaking background, was a considerable barrier. The regular participation in existing groups may have reduced the motivation for people to gather for an additional group activity. Nonetheless, the organisers were fortunate that some of the existing groups extended invitations to them to participate in their activities including the Inner South Community Health Well for Life group, Stonnington Ballroom Dancing Association, Club Joy and Prahran Chinese Elderly Citizens Association. This resulted in the recruiting of individual participants and the gathering of additional stories. Another method employed to gather stories was to join community activities organised by other services. This required canvassing people participating or visiting the adventure Playgrounds school holiday activities as well as the Meet your Neighbours Day on the Horace Petty Estate.

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The context
The Horace Petty Estate is the largest social housing estate in the state of Victoria. It sits inside the square formed by Malvern and Surrey roads, and Simmons and Bray streets, in the suburbs of Prahran/SouthYarra, in the municipality of Stonnington.

maps.google.com.au
Built between the 1960s and 1970s, it comprises two 42m, 13 storey, Z-shaped buildings and 12 lower rise apartment blocks. With 624 one, two and three bedroom units, it can house in access of 1000 residents. Among the residents who have participated in the social atlas project, there are many who have lived at Horace Petty for 30 to 40 years. While 73% of the residents at the Estate recognise themselves as Russian, 17 more ethnic groups have been identified living there at present. They are Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians, from Belarus, Checz Republic, Chile, China, Colombia, Germany, Greece, Japan, Italy, Mauritius, Romania, Sudan, Turkey, Ukraine and Viet Nam. Other nationalities have lived at Horace Petty Estate in the past from Latin America, Asia and Europe, but have moved on since. Interestingly, many of the people who participated in the workshops did not know the name of the estate and who Horace Petty was. And while the estate has been receiving some media coverage, as a result of approved redevelopments (due to start soon), which will add 188 new apartments to the estate, the local press and some Government literature refers to it as Prahran Estate.
Who was Horace Petty anyway? Horace Petty was a Prahran Councillor and State Minister for Housing until 1961 and Minister for Immigration from 1956.

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A Snapshot: the following demographic data has been generated from one of the larger high-rise buildings, known as 2 Simmons St. It has 228 residents, and represents only part of the Estate community.

AGE OF TENANTS 60 50
No. of Tenants

40 30 20 10 0 0 to 4 5 to 9 10 to 19 20 to 29 30 to 39 40 to 49 50 to 59 60 to 69 70 to 79 80 to 89 90 and over

Age Bracket

ETHNICITY

USSR/Baltic Vietnam Australia Not stated Russian Fed Ukraine Turkey Fiji Eritrea Sudan Poland Fmr China Bosnia-Herz Spain Phillipines England Egypt Sri Lanka Chile Africa Southern Romania Mauritius Lebanon Laos Greece Germany Cyprus Belgium Afghanistan 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

No. Who Identify

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The Stories: The People

The Jean Taylor Story. Did you know that the legendary Aussie rock outfit AC/DC once practiced in one of the flats at the Horace Petty Estate? This is one of the many memories and anecdotes Jean Taylor has from living at the estate. Jean has lived at Horace Petty more than half of her 82 years, and was the first tenant to occupy a flat at no. 259 Malvern Road. Jean moved in 45 years ago with her elderly mother and her five children, developing a commitment to the place which saw her being at the centre of many community activities. Jean Taylor was one of the founding members of the Public Tenants Association, which, in those days, included the tenants from the Bank, Essex and King Streets estates. Jean recalls the functions of the Association as being rights based; looking after the interests and concerns of tenants, disseminating information and marching the streets in protest to certain decisions made by the Ministry of Housing. The association was self-funded, it used to set up weekly market stalls in the estate where volunteers contributed and sold cakes, toffee, knitted and croqueted crafts. The formal meetings were held in the community room, but most evenings people used to gather in the open spaces underneath the flats, sit on wooden logs, light up a fire and share stories. Jean fondly recalls the basketball court being full every night, and her being responsible for the light box key, being pestered by the young folks needing access to it at late hours. But this didnt trouble Jean, as she would gladly put up with a bit of banter and racket from rowdy young people rather than having them roaming the streets with nothing to do. As part of her community activities, Jean was one of the organisers of the Friday night dance for teenagers. The music was very loud, but if we could keep people out of trouble, we didnt care Jean said. What about the older folk? Well, Friday nights were for the young ones, and Saturday nights for the young at heart with the 50/50 Dance parties. Adding to the dance theme, Jean and her friends organised Tuesday night tap dancing, complete with costumes made by another tenant, and a ballroom dancing school. Although these activities no longer happen at Horace Petty, Jean, who still goes dancing every Friday night, would be delighted to get involved again, if other tenants in the estate were interested in organising them. Im not a bit afraid of walking around the estate. I feel quite safe here, I always have she says. This is my home, it is good and I have everything I need. If there is anything I miss here its a bit of a back yard where Id like to have a barbeque with family and friends. I always wanted one, but thats how it is. I think it is fantastic that they are building more units on the estate, as there are too many people on long waiting lists that need homes, just like I did and still do now. What Id like to see though, is that the security guards that work on the estate were given a better room to sit in. Where they are now is not suitable. They would be better placed were the office of housing used to be. Oh, I also wish we had windows we could clean ourselves. 9 The Horace Petty Estate Social Atlas

The Stories: The People

What is it like living at Horace Petty? Cem, 42. Good, plenty for the kids to do. We would be lost without the Adventure Playground. Melda, 70. I lived here 32 years. Good, I keep to my place. Cameron, 6. I like the adventure playground and playing with my friends. Ebony, 8. Good. Zinaida, 66. I like here every time Milan, 68. Noisy. Poline, 60. It is perfect to live here. Yevgeniy, 78. Everything may and should be improved Bob, 61. Dreadful

A HAPPY experience at Harold Petty I would like to share: Cem, 42. No problems here, kids are happy. Cant ask for much more Melda, 70. Happy to live here with people from the same country (Mauritius). Cameron, 6. The trampoline is really fun and PCYC Zinaida, 66. Meeting with people where I can share my experiences and communicate Milan, 68. Some neighbourhoods are nice, quiet. Poline, 60. Meetings with people where I can share my experiences and communicate Yevgeniy, 78. Improving my interests (English and computer) Bob, 61. Getting out of the place and going elsewhere

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A SAD experience at Horace Petty I would like to share: Melda, 70. All my family live here, so no sad experience. Zinaida, 66. We havent a community bus. Milan, 68. Some noisy, dangerous occupants. Poline, 60. Til now, our windows hadnt been cleaned from the outside. Also, the old fashioned tram (78) hasnt been changed. We havent a community bus. All these things were promised. Yevgeniy, 78. Multicultural politics, bad health service Bob, 61. Dealing with David Bolgar alleged manager paid by DHS not to do his job

What improvements would you like to see at Horace Petty? Cem, 42. Fix the car park, it floods when it rains, more cleaning, pets urinate in the lifts Melda, 70. The flats are too old, the ceilings peel off Cameron, 6. Some more swings Zinaida, 66. I would like to have a bigger bus for walking group Milan, 68. Quietness, Security Poline, 60. To make more heating in flats and the community room Yevgeniy, 78. Stop discrimination elderly people. Improve health care service. Create an experienced permanent active Board of Tenants Bob, 61. A community / social worker permanently on the Estate. Increased security guards and number of hours worked. Community garden(s) including herb garden accessible to all tenants, Community kitchen utilising locally grown organic produce More participation by ISCHS Guest speakers on various topics similar to ConnectED Self help

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The Stories: The People

Whats it like living at Horace Petty? Ive been living here for three years. Its good, quiet and peaceful. I know everyone and everyone knows me. I also have a friend from the Mauritius here.

A happy experience I want to share: Using the community room, having lunch and cakes there. I havent been for a while, but my friend usually lets me know when there is something happening there. A sad experience I want to share: No many sad stories here. But once I let someone use one of my two fridges because she didnt have a place to store her food and when she retrieved it she pinched my food.

Improvements I would like to see at Horace Petty: I would like a barbeque area closer to my unit. There are bbqs around but it would be good to have some on the other side too.

Name: Age: Cultural background: Occupation: Interests: 12

Eddy 59 Mauritius Former Chef Sport, soccer The Horace Petty Estate Social Atlas

Whats it like living at Horace Petty? Weve been here five years. Its been ok on and off, but now I cant wait to move as my 14 year old son is getting into trouble and mixing with the wrong people

A happy experience I want to share:

Putting up with my friend Val (laughter), who lives here too.

A sad experience I want to share: Neighbours I dont get along with, so I keep to myself.

Improvements I would like to see at Horace Petty: I would like to see all the flats renovated, not just the first two floors.

Name: Age: Cultural background: Occupation: Interests:

Julie 33 Australian Canteen worker Sports, tennis, squash, cooking

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Whats it like living at Horace Petty? Weve been here just a week, so, were not sure. At the moment it seems good, much better than North Melbourne, where we were before. Weve been waiting seven years for this place. It seems to have more facilities than where weve come from, and it is closer to the school Amina goes to.

A happy experience I want to share: Weve already met our neighbours. They gave us a warm welcome as soon as we arrived, with cakes, sweets and lollies.

A sad experience I want to share: .No sad stories, weve just arrived

Improvements I would like to see at Horace Petty: I cant say as Im getting to know the place, but where we were before we had no facilities, so this is better.

Name: Age: Cultural background: Occupation: Interests:

Sarah with daughter Amina 42 Sudan Teachers Aid Accountant, administrator, cooking, reading

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Whats it like living at Horace Petty? No bad, could be better. Could have more social activities on the Estate. One must be very vigilant with ones belongings; I had a bad experience of things being stolen. Need more security cameras in the foyer near the letterbox.

A happy experience I want to share: Meeting neighbours at the games afternoon and Tai Chi. The help I received from a lovely young lass by the name of Clarissa when our dog was stolen. A sad experience I want to share: Belongings and dog stolen. Someone helped themselves to the plant stand outside my front passageI thought this was a bit rude. I only had my Jack Russel cross Wisky for 6 days, and he was taken. Improvements I would like to see at Horace Petty: More security cameras on the floors, in the foyer and letter-boxes. More security people to move on noisy troublemakers at night. More social group activities in the community room like games, films, Tai Chi, coffee afternoons. For the kids may be activities in the weekend so they can burn off their energies. Name: Age: Cultural background: Occupation: Interests: Ursula 61 German Former Secretary Dancing, music, books, TV, videos/DVD, Tai Chi, outings, beach, swimming

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The Stories: The Skills

Interests and Skills of Residents at Horace Petty Housing Estate Everything! Except sewing, pulling weeds, art (if done by me) housework, soccer and listening (Bob, 61) Dancing, music, books, tai chi, outings, TV/Videos, Beach/Swimming (Ursula, 61) English Language, Computer (middle level) Yevgeniy 78. Concerts, events, excursions, playing some game, socialising (Poline 60) Spirituality/ Visual Art (Milan, 68) Excursions, concerts, events, meetings (Zinaida, 66) Drawing (Kenarrn, 8) Soccer, drawing/colouring, basketball, footy, bike, skateboarding and scooter riding (Cameron, 6) Sport tennis and squash, Cooking (Julie, 33) Sport, soccer (Eddy, 59) Accountancy/admin, cooking, reading (Sarah, 42) Cooking, looking after my nephew (Melda, 70) Footy, soccer, upholstery (Cem, 42)

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The Stories: The Skills Residents of Horace Petty Estate can do..
Accountancy Nursing Electrical engineering Administration Psychology Singing Music (guitar) Pool Dancing Games Tai Chi Ballroom dancing Community development Cooking Computer programming Mechanical engineering Draftsperson Site managing Training Group organising Writing Rapping Singing Gymnastics Athletics running Rugby league

Residents of Horace Petty Estate would like to

Use Photoshop or Paint-shop professional (computer programmes) Learn a musical instrument: guitar/piano/trumpet/ drums Stepping/ stomping (dance) Computer class English class (depending on quality. Also require a passionate and caring facilitator) Social Club (night) Cooking Singing lessons

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The Stories: The Services

Ardoch Youth Foundation Adventure Playground City of Stonnington Connections Dept of Human Services Home Ground Services Inner South Community Health Service (ISCHS) New Hope Foundation Office of Housing Police Citizens Youth Club (PCYC)

Port Phillip Community Group Prahran Malvern Community Housing Inc Prahran Mission Prahran Neighbourhood House South Yarra Tenants Association TRYouth and Community Services

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Contact details for Services

Ardoch Youth Foundation Breakfast and lunch programme and school support for children Ph: 9537 2414 www.ardoch.asn.au

Adventure Playground Managed by the City of Stonnington Community Development team Ph: 0409 505 293 2 Simmons Street Horace Petty Estate

City of Stonnington Fund community development worker involved with Estate activities Ph: 8290 1333 www.stonnington.vic.gov.au

Connections Facilitate young mums group at Kindergarten Ph: 9521 5666 www.connections.org.au

Department of Human Services Office of Housing Landlords of Tenancies in Horace Petty Housing Estate, manage community garden and other activities Ph: 8646 3600 www.dhs.vic.gov.au
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Home Ground Services Formerly managed the Community Room at Simmons Street, support homeless and at risk people in Prahran area through SHASP Ph: 9537 7711 www.homeground.org.au

Inner South Community Health Service (ISCHS) Have managed Fit for Life walking group, tai chi and other activites Ph: 9525 1300 www.ischs.org.au New Hope Foundation Support service for recently arrived refugees and migrants Ph: 9510 5877 www.newhope.asn.au PCYC St Kilda Run basketball and other sporting and recreational activities for young people Fortnightly attendance at Estate Ph: 9534 7584 stkildapcyc.org Port Phillip Community Group Manage the Community Room at Simmons Street Ph: 8598 6600 www.ppcg.org.au Prahran Malvern Community Housing Inc Manage community rooming houses, located in the area Ph: 9826 5194 Shop 2, 1 Surrey Road

Prahran Mission Provide a Creative Space and Outreach service for residents of Inner South Ph: 9692 9400 www.prahranmission.org.au
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Prahran Community Learning Centre Inc Offer computer skills and other courses and learning opportunities for residents of the Inner South Ph: 9510 7052 www.pnhouse.org.au

South Yarra Tenants Association Located on the Estate, peak body to represent tenants issues Ph: 0403-051-330

TRYouth and Community Care kindergarten Manage the Kindergarten, 3 and 4 year old kindergarten groups Ph: 9804 7569 southyarra@tryyouth.org.au

Please Note: The agency listing above is not a comprehensive record of the services available in Prahran and adjacent areas to the Horace Petty Estate, but a documentation of the services mentioned by the participants of the social atlas project (for a more 21 comprehensive directory of services see the reference page). The Horace Petty Estate Social Atlas

The Stories: The Community Groups

The ALPHA group meets in the community room every Wednesday at 5.30pm. Facilitator Anna Ruffat describes ALPHA as a spiritual, nondenominational course, based on Christian philosophies but open to anyone looking to make positive changes in their lives. The course is structured around five three-hour sessions written by Nicky Gambel. The evening starts with a meal, followed by a film, and group discussion. The ALPHA group has been meeting for the last five years, it is free of charge and open to anyone.

English Class (Chinese teacher) This class runs once a week on Thursdays in the Community Room and is taught by Mrs Lu and George.

English Class (Russian) I have been teaching the class for 4 months. Thats how long the classes have been running. I am not a tenant of the estate, I have English as a Second Language (ESL) experience and experience teaching at TAFE. In the class there are about 8 regulars, all 70 years plus. They are tenants of Horace Petty estate. Daniela is the teacher of the class. She states its convenient for everyone, having the class at the Estate. Its very close to where people live. Therefore, people are more motivated to attend, especially when there is bad weather. The classes are free also, and open to everyone. In the classes, the students use a reader, photocopied sheets (worksheets) and conversation. They usually talk about news and current affairs. A lot of the people are older and watch the news so that is something they are interested in and what we can talk about. Daniela says, It is a fun class, we have laughs. Since the time of the interview, this class has relocated to the King St Community Room, due to safety fears, following an unpleasant incident at the Simmons St Community Room.

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Stonnington Chinese Association Jimmy P.Z Ge a former member of the Association, stated that In the group I have been involved with everything arranging meeting and community activities. I also had to convene meetings if members had any problems, such as not having anywhere to live or having financial difficulties. Usually we could resolve these problems within the association, but if we couldnt, we would get help from the Chinese community. We are a not-for profit organization, and you need to know the community to be involved. I was involved for 16 years, but I had to stop because my health worsened. It was very important to use the community room at Horace Petty as it provided a meeting point and activity venue. Most of the members lived at the Horace Petty Estate.

Prahran Chinese Elderly Citizens Association Chan Kon Ma is the President of the Association, a position he has held for 20 years. The group has been running for over 20 years. The Association typically has lunch together, where there is a social aspect through their own group interactions, and with other Chinese groups. The group play table tennis, sing karaoke, chess and mah-jong. It was explained that the Association also meet to acknowledge festivals such as Chinese new year, Fathers Day, Seniors Week and other events. They have birthday parties monthly for members. There are around 20 members in the Association. The group meets at The Community Room because they can play table tennis there. Also, it is a central location for members, some of whom live at Horace Petty.

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Club Joy According to Isaac Bykovsky ; a representative of the organization, Club Joy has been meeting in the Community Room at Horace Petty for approximately 5 years. There are usually 15-20 people at the gatherings, mostly elderly people. They play table tennis on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as having Shabbat on Friday night the Jewish Sabbath. However, he explains they are a social group. There are religious and non-religious people involved. Club Joy use the Community room for meetings, activities and before excursions. Isaac states that Club Joy wouldnt be able to function without the Community Room. It is a central location for members.

Golden Age Club The Club has been meeting in the Community Room at Horace Petty for 9 years, and Nellie has been involved as an Outreach worker for 7 years. There are approximately 115 members on the books, including women, men and couples of mostly Russian speaking and other Culturally And Linguistically Diverse backgrounds. The group uses the Community Room at the Horace Petty Housing Estate because people need it, it provides a place to meet close to where people live. All the participants of the group live in the City of Stonnington, either on the Estate or nearby. It is an important social activity for low income people who cant afford to go to concerts in the city, so we play the piano and have concerts here. The group also has guest speakers including local politicians and health professionals to talk on current events and bring members up to date with changes to Australian policy and law. The group also learn about the Australian way of life and celebrate Jewish and Australian holidays and festivals. Club Joy aims to create a bridge between the local community and citizens, as well as support people to live independently as long as possible rather than go into residential aged care facilities.

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Hope of Glory Kids Club This Group has been running an after school activity programme for primary school age children for nearly 10 years on the Estate. Maree White, a Chaplain at a local primary school, ran the club for 5 years in its previous home (in the Tryouth Kindergarten) on the Estate. She has facilitated the group for 2 years from its current home in the Community Room. At Hope of Glory Kids Club they mostly play games, have music and songs and a basic Bible teaching. While currently around 10 children regularly attend, Maree reports up to 30 would attend in the past. Once a month, Hope of Glory operates a teenager focussed activity such as sport or ice-skating. The Club use the room at Horace Petty, as the Church, located nearby in the Industrial estate, is trying to build relationships with the community. Maree said it is important to do this, as the people are important. She does outreach including door knocking, letterbox drops and annual BBQs and Christmas activities on the Estate to make and build connections with families.

Young Mums Group This group meets on Fridays at 2pm in the Kindergarten. The group has been facilitated by Natalie from Connections at Windsor, since late 2009, but the group itself has been running on and off for at least 7 years. Currently there are between 5 7 women attending the group each week. It has only really just started to take-off. At the end of each term, the women decide the activities they are interested in for the following term. Some of these activities include: art and craft, scrapbooking, cooking, visiting Daydreamers (indoor play centre) and other excursions to local places. There was discussion with the women about changing the location of this group; however they all agreed they would like to stay at the kindergarten on the estate. The kinder is local and convenient for the mums and provides everything need for activities, including the playground. Very few of the women are from the estate; however, Natalie and Stonnington Youth Services worker, Sarah, are working on promoting the group within the estate more widely. Natalie thinks it is important the group is run from the kinder so other women on the estate are encouraged to attend. A group like this needs to be local and convenient in order for the women to come.

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Recommendations
1. Community Mapping: It is our understanding that the Department of Human Services will assign a Place Management Team comprising three officers, for a period of three years in the offices situated at 259 Malvern Rd, Prahran. We recommend that this team build on this social atlas project to conduct a comprehensive community mapping of the Estate. Including a detailed skills and assets register, which will focus on the strengths, knowledges, abilities and amenities currently available within the resident community. Utilising creative means for communicating and representing information e.g. through personal narratives, has been found to be a meaningful process. 2. Youth: From the outset of this project it was evident that social organisation among older CALD communities was strong, as well as services for children. Very few young people (16-25years) engaged with the project. It was this group which a large proportion of the participants were concerned about. While pilots are underway to increase the youth-friendliness of the existing Community Room, it has been suggested, that a separate social space for young people would be more appealing to both the client group and youthspecialist services. It is recommended that the possibility of utilising some of the now-vacated 259 Malvern Offices for this purpose be explored. 3. Security: consistently during the activities of the social atlas project, participants have raised issues of safety and their experiences of feeling unsafe on the Estate. It is recommended that safety measures be assessed in light of these concerns; including hours and locations of security patrols, architectural improvements to walkways and the entrance to Community Room, as well as establishing protocols with local police. 4. Communication: It was raised by a number of tenants that they believed many other residents may be unaware of low/no cost programmes and activities on offer in the community room and surrounds. It was recommended that the community notice board features be expanded to more sites and greater efforts made to promote social and recreational activities to all tenantsparticularly intergenerational events and ones involving younger people. Producing promotional material that is sensitive to the comprehension needs of those with low level English literacy is essential. Given that the vast majority of older residents at Horace Petty are of nonEnglish speaking backgrounds, it was very difficult to arrange for meetings or events that would cater to the range of cultural stakeholder groups. Having multiple interpreters present was problematic. Moreover, several Group members were not interested in being involved in any activities beyond their current schedules. Therefore, it was found that the most effective way of broadly engaging, was to bring the content of the events to the Groups at their convenience and specifically targeted to their language needs. 5. Facilities: There were a number of issues raised regarding facilities on the Estate, including expansion of the community garden facilities to be accessible to more tenants, along with an upgrade to the tenants car park. Residents from the apartments known as walk ups indicated a desire to have barbeque facilities closer to their units. Other facility requests included more swings, a community bus, heating in flats and the community room and
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maintenance of ageing apartments. Staff felt that better signage would also be a priority. 6.

Services:

Repeated requests were made during the consultation process for improvements to health and social care services. These included care for the elderly, more participation by ISCHS, more social activities in the community room, as well as creating an experienced permanent active Board of Tenants and establishing a community / social worker permanently on the Estate. Other suggestions made by tenants were a community kitchen utilising locally grown organic produce. Participants also suggested having guest speakers on various topics. General increase of cleaning services of communal areas, including lifts, have also been recommended. It should be noted that on a whole, children and their parents were very positive about the Adventure Playground.

References
Children and Family Services (09-11), City of Stonnington www.stonnington.vic.gov.au Directory of Services for Young People (2005), City of Stonnington, www.stonnington.vic.gov.au Mental Health Services (2007), City of Stonnington www.stonnington.vic.gov.au HORACE PETTY ESTATE PRAHRAN PRECINCT REDEVELOPMENT: STAGE 1 (June 2010), Department of Human Services | Horace Petty Estate: 267-271 Malvern Road and 1 Surrey Road, South Yarra | Planning Report 20 O:\projects\07-6821\006\word\finalised\32586R.doc

27 The Horace Petty Estate Social Atlas