Wendy Brewin

Inclusive communities coordinator

Wendy’s role within the team is to promote and develop community involvement with projects; encouraging working relationships between managers and owners of public open spaces and local communities, particularly people from socially excluded groups.

Wendy has developed inclusive consultation techniques to give people the opportunity to voice their ideas and concerns in a positive environment. These techniques make consultation accessible to socially excluded groups who find it diffciult to engage with conventional techniques. They also build positive relationships between managers of public open spaces and local communities.

Wendy has used these techniques to lead the development of access plans and audience development plans to support major Heritage Lottery Fund bids for the renovation of green spaces around the country. All with successful results!

Wendy manages the Creative Spaces project, a Sensory Trust flagship project using the outdoor environment to reconnect older people with dementia, young people and the wider community. This work is demonstrating the value of outdoor environments in bringing meaningful activity and a sense of purpose into the lives of older people with dementia - a topic that is becoming of increasing significance with the rise in the number of people with dementia.

Wendy's background includes environmental management and environmental education. She worked with BTCV (British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) to organise and lead conservation working holidays and develop a programme of day tasks for a group of autistic adults. She was then Education Officer at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, setting up a new environmental education programme, before moving to the Eden Project to join the Human Resources team. She joined the Sensory Trust in 2002.

Wendy's her skills playing musical instruments have also been put to good use and she helped set up the Sensory Trust band (an eclectic mix of musical mayhem).

Here are some other examples of work that Wendy has been involved in since joining the Sensory Trust:

• Creative Spaces
• National Trust access review - production of an evaluation tool and running training for the Community Learning and Volunteering Managers, rangers and wardens at the National Trust.
• Capital Woodlands Project– led the community consultation and preparation of Access and Audience Development Plans for six woodland sites in the area of Greater London , as part of a major HLF bid
• Mote Park, Kent – led community consultation and preparation of Access and Audience Development Plans for an HLF bid by Maidstone Borough Council

And selected articles:

• Towards the Edge - Sensory Trust undertook a series of consultation engagement sessions as part of Eden Project's big build plans
• Making community engagement and staff training creative and fun - creative community engagement at the National Trust's Lanhydrock estate
• I’d be happier outside - the values of communities past and present for older disabled people

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