England Standards Board

ESB has undertaken several research projects in the recent past. Details of these are below:

Developing the infrastructure for Community Development Learning and Qualifications in London

This project is a follow on piece of work designed to take forward the report produced in 2006 which mapped the range of community development work learning available in London.

The aim was to explore ways to increase the availability of community development work learning programmes, and to suggest future actions. The project aimed to examine whether community development training would be best delivered at a pan London level through a new centre or if there was the potential to develop existing sub regional and local training providers to add community development to their portfolios.

Download the Developing the infrastructure for Community Development Learning and Qualifications in London document

Download the Developing the infrastructure for Community Development Learning and Qualifications in London supporting material document

Community Development Project - Yorkshire and Humber

In 2006 the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Advisory Group on Community Development (RAG-CD) and the ESB obtained funding from Change Up to develop the community development network in the region. This project mapped where community workers are in the region, where community development learning is taking place, and all the regional and sub regional policies that affect communities we work with, and considered how CD can inform the high level outcomes that come from such policies.

The project's Final Report and Executive Summary are now available to download as pdf documents.

As part of this project, a regional conference was held in June 2006 in Leeds to present the mapping of CD and CD learning in the region, unveil the regional policy matrix, and make plans for the future. The conference report is also available to download.

Two free workshops were held in May 2006 - one for rural workers and one for urban workers to explore regional policies and how they can be influenced, and to look at the training and learning needs of community workers and groups. The aims of these events were to provide CD workers with:

• An opportunity to find out more about regional policy and to get up to date in an ever changing world,

• A greater awareness of how your CD work fits within the regional policy and what it is contributing to these high level strategies,

• Space to network with other CD workers and share and learn from each others experiences,

• Information about the national and regional CD learning framework map,

• An opportunity to help determine future developments in the region and across the north of England.

There is now an active community development learning network for the region. Visit YHCDN.net to find out more

Community Development Training and Learning Audit - London 2006

A Report and Executive Summary on the ESB's work on the London Community Development Training and Learning Audit are now available to download in pdf format.

The ESB secured funding under ChangeUp to map community development learning in the 32 boroughs in London, run six National Occupational Standards training courses, and assess the quality of any community development learning programmes - particularly looking at good practice examples of learning being provided by Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) and small voluntary and community organisations. The work was undertaken between November 2005 and May 2006, and included some joint work with CDX who explored community development work networks in two boroughs.

The aim of the training audit was to develop an overall picture of the provision of training and learning for community development in London. Good quality community development work training will produce community development workers who can deliver on the targets central government is setting around community involvement and participation, capacity building, community cohesion and strengthening the voluntary and community sectors.

This work lays the foundations to ensure that appropriate support is developed for community development workers across London and adds value to other ChangeUp Performance Improvement activities.