Archive for October, 2008

echo – a tool for public agencies

echo is a tool for public agencies to use to consider how open they are to community influence, in relation to their potential to respond to that influence. We have been talking to different agencies about it and it seems to make sense to them, so we are currently in the process of testing it out.

For a brief lowdown – download the 2-page summary and, if you want more information, you can download a copy of the original research report.

We recently ran a ‘rapid briefing’ session in the East Midlands where officers identified a variety of uses for echo:

  • It is an easy toolkit, could be useful across the County to help consistency and to talk to the non-converted
  • It could help with the Community Engagement Strategy development thought process
  • It could provide us with a baseline of where we are – and an action plan
  • It made me think differently – more deeply into what outcomes could be
  • It turns the intangible into the tangible
  • I can see how we could usefully apply this to help the organisation move forward in terms of equality and diversity
  • There has to be recognition of good practice in the organisation, echo can help us to locate this and learn from it
  • Within an LSP context it is important – funding reductions will make it hard for the LA to respond so we are going to have to work more in partnership

changes offers short (3 hour) sessions to introduce echo and facilitate discussion about how it might be useful to agencies and partnerships: contact us for fees and availability

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 Community influence

DiCE: planning & evaluation framework

changes is pleased to introduce DiCE – download the 2-page summary here!

Researched for over 10 years, DiCE has been developed by community development specialists, to enable organisations to carry out effective community empowerment, putting the values and principles of community development into action.

DiCE can help you work with communities:

  • Increasing skills, knowledge and confidence
  • Promoting equality and inclusion
  • Bringing people together around common issues and concerns
  • Building positive relationships across communities and groups and enabling co-operative working
  • Encouraging and enabling communities to influence decision making in public services

DiCE can be used for work which focuses on community wellbeing and community empowerment, at policy, programme or project level. It is appropriate to people who work in public and voluntary sectors, in roles such as: Community Engagement, Community Services, Neighbourhood Management…

changes offers 2-day training courses on DiCE – contact us for information

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 Community development, Community empowerment