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Current Events

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: NOW MORE THAN EVER

Bookings are open for our conference ‘Community Development - Now More than Ever: Empowering communities to respond to the challenges facing public services’. This will take place on Tuesday, 21 September 2010 at Hampden Stadium, Glasgow G42 9AY, from 10.30am (registration 9.45am) to 4pm. Details are available here.

The cost is £40 for community organisations and £60 for other organisations. To make a reservation, please go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QWWNHM8  or use the form

Speakers are:

• Keith Brown MSP, Minister for Skills and Lifelong Learning Empowering communities to respond to the challenges facing public services
  
• Sandy Watson, Chair, Tayside Health Board & former Chief Executive, Angus Council The current challenge and the response we need
  
• Julia Slay, Acting Head of Co-production, New Economics Foundation When and how communities can help to deliver outcomes
•  Nick Beddow, Chief Executive, Community Development Exchange ‘What would happen if we had no Community Development?’
• Alan Barr, Advisor, Scottish Community Development Centre Community Development – a shared responsibility                          

There will also be opportunities to exchange experience, showcase good practice, tools and resources and explore how to work together and support each other.

The conference should appeal to a wide range of people, across the community, voluntary, public and private sectors, who are directly involved in strengthening communities or who want to understand how their contribution to outcomes could be made more effective.

The conference is organised in association with the Community Development Exchange, the Scottish Community Development Centre, Community Learning and Development Managers Scotland and the Scottish Community Development Network.

Past Events

PUTTING COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT INTO COMMUNITY SAFETY  

In association with Scottish Community Safety Network (SCSN), 22 March 2010, Renfield Centre, Glasgow

The national outcomes agreed by the Scottish Government and COSLA include:

• We live our lives safe from crime, disorder and danger, but also:
• We have strong, resilient and supportive communities where people take responsibility for their own actions and how they affect others.

Much good work has been done to build community safety partnerships and community engagement in safety issues. But can community development make a more fundamental contribution to enhancing people’s safety and perceptions of safety? This conference looked at how we can foster the ability of communities to:

• Help people to look out for each other and their safety
• Tackle problems that lie at the root of disorder and other threats to safety
• Reach out to and integrate vulnerable groups
• Have the confidence to understand the safety issues that they face in an accurate and proportionate way.

Presentations and Key Issues

STRONGER COMMUNITIES: WEALTHIER AND FAIRER SCOTLAND

in association with Senscot 10 November, 2009, Stirling Management Centre

Our communities make a fundamental contribution to making Scotland a wealthier and fairer place to live. Especially in the current economic situation, it is essential to recognise and strengthen their role:

• The social capital that exists in strong and resilient communities helps people to survive and overcome difficult times; community learning and development can help to build this resilience
• Communities can play a crucial role in practical action, to create alternative skills and jobs, and to help people cope with reductions in income
• Social enterprise can help to put us on a sustainable path for the future; but the basis for it first needs to be built within communities.

The conference brought together people from all sectors to explore experience and ideas about how to strengthen communities and enhance their contribution to these objectives.

Presentations (where available)

MEASURING WHAT MATTERS

Community Development Alliance Scotland Seminar, in association with International Association for Community Development, Carnegie UK Trust and Scottish Community Development Centre)

27 March, 2009, West Park Conference Centre, Dundee.

This event provided an opportunity to look at experience, in Atlantic Canada, in the UK in general and in Scotland, in developing approaches which incorporate fresh thinking about the measurement of outcomes that really matter, rather than simply what is easily measurable.  It looked at how to base policies on what really affects the quality of life in communities, and strengthens them; how to involve people in deciding what outcomes matter to them; and how to properly value

FULL ILLUSTRATED CONFERENCE REPORT

PRESENTATIONS TO CONFERENCE

LEARNING TO WORK TOGETHER FOR OUR FUTURE

How Community Learning and Development can help us achieve a sustainable future

Community Development Alliance Scotland Seminar, in association with Sustainable Development Commission and Scottish Government (Learning Connections)
13 February, 2009, Pertth Concert Hall

This event was aimed at ensuring that more is done to develop and support action by people in communities to apply the principles of sustainable development. In particular it looked at how to do more to:

• Build the capacity of communities to take action both to change their own circumstances and to address global concerns
• Integrate the question of a sustainable future into community based  learning
• Involve young people in learning and acting on the issues.

It also looked at practical ideas on how the role of communities and Community Learning and Development can be recognised and supported in Scotland during the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014).

PRESENTATIONS AND REPORTS FROM CONFERENCE

Making the connections: How community development helps to deliver national and local outcomes

Community Development Alliance Scotland Seminar, in association with COSLA and Perth & Kinross Council, 18 March 2008

Community development is an important but often invisible process which helps people to achieve a wide range of the quality of life outcomes that are reflected in national and local outcomes and targets for local authorities and their partners. This seminar aimed to bring this process to light and discuss how it can be better recognised and supported.

It was designed to appeal to people in local authorities and partner organisations (including elected members) who are concerned with finding effective ways of achieving outcomes, whether or not they are actively involved in community development.

Speakers included:
Fiona Lees, Chief Executive, East Ayrshire Council
Sean Stronach, CLD Manager, Learning Connections, Scottish Government
Alan Barr, Scottish Community Development Centre

Workshops were held on how community development supports each of the national strategic priorities

Report of event

New Powers for Communities?

Community Development Alliance Scotland/SCDC Seminar 1 November 2007

The Scottish Government was elected on a platform which includes proposals for ‘new powers for communities’. These include:

• giving deprived communities the ability to opt for a new ‘empowered status’, which might allow local people to co-manage a proportion of public spending and services
• devolving greater responsibilities to community councils, including possible responsibility for a portion of current local spending.

This Seminar allowed people from all the sectors involved to look at what this might mean in practice and what community development can do to help make such powers work effectively. Our discussions will contribute directly to the work that the Scottish Government has begun on the implementation of these proposals.

Speakers included:     Stephen Maxwell (Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations)
Alasdair McKinlay (Communities Scotland)

Report of event

Building the Agenda for Change

Community Development Alliance Scotland Seminar 26 January 2007

This seminar brought together a wide range of chief officers, managers, and practitioners in order to consider emerging issues for community development in Scotland and, in particular, to identify key priorities for the Alliance in 2007. The following are available to download:

Keynote speech by Professor Gary Craig, Professor of Social Justice, University of Hull and President of the International Association for Community Development

A Manifesto for Communtiy Development in Scotland? Presentation by Stewart Murdoch, Chair of CDAS (PowerPoint slides for this presentation)

Building the Agenda for Change Background paper on issues facing community development in Scotland, by Peter Taylor

The Implications of Outcome Based Funding

Community Development Alliance Scotland Seminar 3rd June 2005

This seminar examined the implications of outcome based funding for both policy and practice. The presentations from the following speakers are available to download:

• “The Implications of Outcomes” Stewart Murdoch - Chair CDAS;
• A Single Outcome Agreement Jon Harris – Strategic Director CoSLA;
• Working to Outcome Agreements Alan Hosie – Dundee BNSF

The Implications of Outcome Based Funding PowerPoint Presentations (100 Kb)

Also available to download

A more detailed paper on his presentation Outcome based practice from: Alan Barr – Co-Director SCDC.

Outcome based community development practice (34 Kb)

A more detailed paper on her presentation Professional Contradictions and Challenges: Mae Shaw, University of Edinburgh

Professional Contradictions and Challenges (53Kb)

Budapest Declaration Seminar

PowerPoint Presentations

A series of presentations from the seminar are available for download. All presentations are in zip format. To view a presentations, download the zip file and extract the PowerPoint file.

Introduction to the Budapest Declaration (1.4 Mb)
Stewart Murdoch - CDAS

Immigration and Asylum and the Budapest Declaration (95 Kb)
Mick Doyle - Scottish Refugee Council

Community Development – sustainable development and the environment (640 Kb) Deryck Irving - Greenspace Scotland