Community influence
Coming up in March 2010
Voice
We have just trained up facilitators in Wiltshire to work with ’Voice’. Other training in the pipeline includes a 2-day course in Birmingham. Commissioned by CDF and targeting Take Part Pathfinders and delivery partners from across England, this Voice facilitators course is on16 & 17 March 2010. Contact Emma Perry: emma.perry@cdf.org.uk at CDF 0207 833 1772 to book places.
echo
Echo is in the midst of being piloted in the West Midlands and materials are currently being developed to accompany the up and coming training for ‘echo facilitators’ which is due to take place in Wolverhampton on 24 & 25 March 2010. Funded by Wolverhampton Partnership and the Black Country Take Part Pathfinder, this course is open to people working in the West Midlands. Contact Monika Verma: monika@wton-partnership.org.uk at Wolverhampton Partnership.
Dynamo
Introducing ‘Dynamo’, a new framework designed to help Climate Change Agents become more influential within their own organisations. There is a one-day event on 23rd March 2010 in Birmingham for interested parties to gain an overview of dynamo > application form. We suspect this framework will have wider application, so watch this space!
echo update
echo, our framework to assess and develop public sector openness to influence, is now being tested in the West Midlands as part of the Improvement & Efficiency West Midlands ‘Learning to Deliver’ Programme.
It promises to have a relatively wide application and has already been used to:
- help a Partnership Board to consider how genuinely open they are to community influence
- help inform proposals for improving the quality of community engagement across a locality
- increase awareness and understanding amongst key decision makers and influencers of the need to be open to influence and of what being open to influence looks like
- prioritise actions to move community engagement forward across a Partnership
- as part of a broader action plan on delivering community engagement in a District over a three year period.
- enhance understanding of engagement & empowerment.
- contribute to an LAA NI4 Delivery Plan
If you have not yet come across echo, but this raises your interest, you can find out more in our resources section.
Voice update
Recent comments about Voice include:
Hugely useful, quite enlightening, the breadth and depth is interesting. It doesn’t require significant adaptation to be used in a variety of circumstances
Voice, our framework on assessing and developing community influence, is now being widely used by Community Groups, Networks, Organisations and Forums.
We have recently introduced it to: Police Independent Advisory Groups, Community Centre Management Committees and Community Anchors, and are soon to see how it works with Voluntary Sector Organisations and Forums.
If you haven’t come across it yet but like the sound of it then check out our resources section to download a copy of our leaflet and handy guide, or read more about community influence under our areas of work.
Voice is of particular relevance for workers assigned/attached to particular community groups, networks, organisations, and workers working with and supporting community groups, networks and organisations.
Very useful tool it has clarified things and has given us a lot more to think about
Dispersed leadership
We have been thinking about what we understand by ‘leadership’, with the help of some ideas from ‘Power, Leadership and Change’ (OU Business School, 2000) produced by the Certificate in Management Programme Team:
Instead of seeing leadership as something invested in one person we consider leadership as a process: – tackling the big issues that face a group or an organisation.
For example, if we agree that there are three types of core issues in a group or organisation:
Strategic: the overall direction of the group and the vision
Task: how the group will achieve what it wants to
People: maintaining the morale, commitment and enthusiasm of people over time
Then, a leader is someone who helps the group tackle any or all of these issues - meaning that there can be several leaders at any one time, all working on different things.
It is therefore possible to talk about leadership being ‘dispersed’ throughout the group or organisation – with some having more dispersed leadership than others depending upon culture and membership.
People can demonstrate leadership in different ways:
- Reviewing where the group or organisation is going
- Making sure people feel comfortable and welcomed
- Searching for funding opportunities
- Representing the group in wider forums
- Researching matters of interest to the group
- Knowing the local political and funding context
People can only be leaders if other members of the group or organisation accept them as leaders, accept their influence. This acceptance is often based on knowledge and expertise.
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
Voice (formerly the Axis of Influence)
We have changed the name! The axis for community networks – once called ‘axis of influence’ – is now called ‘voice’. The reason for the change is that we have developed a second axis – for public sector agencies – called ‘echo’. Voice and echo are BOTH axes of influence so we wanted to give them each their own unique name.
‘Voice’ is a tool which helps community groups and networks to assess and improve the influence they have on agencies and partnerships. The ‘axis’ in ‘voice’ plots existing capacity to influence against how influential the group feels. It can be used to: assess and monitor community influence, prompt discussion and debate within groups and help plan how to become more influential.
“If this was America you’d be paying a fortune for the information and know-how that’s contained here. This model is indispensable for any organisation serious about making an impact” – comment from recent ‘Voice’ facilitator training
changes has developed a Resource Pack to help people to make the best use of voice.
- Part 1 – handy guide is available to download here
- For information about the other sections of the Resource Pack, click to check out the ‘introduction and overview’
voice in print
In its former guise as ‘the axis of influence’, articles about voice have been published in the Community Development Journal and NCVO newsletter.
Contact us to talk to us about commissioning a course for people in your area who work with community groups and networks to learn more about ’voice’ and how to use it.
echo – how open to influence are public agencies?
changes recently undertook a piece of research to explore and develop a framework for public agencies to use to consider how open they are to community influence. We have called the framework ‘echo’ to reflect its relationship to our other Axis of Influence: Voice.
echo recognises the restrictions that may be in place for these agencies and so includes an aspect which considers their ‘potential to respond’. Our experience suggests there is huge interest in this and you can download a copy of the research report here.
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
Ten steps to influence
We have been working with Dosti: Dudley’s Community Empowerment Network to develop the Axis of Influence - a ‘tool’ to monitor and evaluate the influence that community networks have on partnerships. The handbook introduces the axis and guides you through the ten steps to influence.
We are now working with Dosti to develop supporting materials, case studies and training for facilitators.
Contact us if you are interested in the axis.
The Power Inquiry
The Power Inquiry – has decided to run a nation-wide campaign for a more responsive and empowering democracy following the huge amount of interest in their report which found that citizens feel systematically excluded from influence, equality and respect and alienated from decisions that affect their lives…
Influence
During our own exploration of influence – looking particularly at the ways in which community networks influence partnerships – we have identified 5 ‘methods’:
- whispering
- shouting
- negotiating
- taking action
- being part of a bigger network
changes is currently developing a model about the ‘axis of influence’ – get in touch to know more or get on the discussion board if you are interested in exploring this further.