Community Learning Development Resource 500 – 11
PEOPLE LEARNING TO PARTICIPATE
SUMMARY
We need to understand why and how local people should connect with any relevant community development or neighbourhood regeneration strategy – any strategy which affects, or seeks to bring about change in, their lives and the lives of those around them. Do they have an entitlement and the capacity to effectively participate in such a strategy? Does a local developmental strategy have a remit to equip and empower local people to participate?
Learning Needs
A community strategy and the action plans are likely to prompt some learning for local people. Do we have a role to play in delivering the learning opportunities and supporting local people as learners? Can a community strategy be prepared and co-ordinated without concern for what local people may need to learn to have a voice?
A minimum learning requirement for local people might be to learn to accept and take-on board any changes and improvements being planned and provided for them. The previous government, in setting out the mandate for Local Strategic Partnerships and the present coalition government in relation to the ‘Big Society’ and ‘Localism’ have indicated that local people should be more than just passive recipients of change. They should be active participants in the development and implementation of any local community strategy, particularly in shaping the impact of any strategy, within local communities and neighbourhoods
The implication of this requirement is that all local people need to be in a position firstly to be able to choose whether or not to be involved and secondly to be accessed to the relevant knowledge, understanding and skills, which lie within the strands and themes of the strategy. This prompts attention to learning, which both enables and encourages individuals and groups, to confidently make that choice and which also equips them if they participate in a meaningful and effective manner.
Effective participation by local people implies the capacity in them to ‘be significant, make themselves heard and make a difference’.
THE LEARNING
To enable individuals to feel able to make choices and to successfully participate in community development activity, their learning could include:
- Gaining some practical understanding what the community strategy is about and how it may affect them and their own neighbourhoods, so that they can participate effectively
- Gaining knowledge and understanding about any particular theme or strand of the local strategy, in order to contribute to the work in that area, for example – the Health theme or improving Community Safety.
- Gaining confidence and the skills to actively and successfully participate in the processes – to engage meaningfully in any consultative process; to have a voice; to influence the planning and outcomes; to identify local needs; to deliver outcomes; to challenge, protest or fight a corner.
It is clear that the people who probably need to learn least are those who are already active and motivated, perhaps workers or volunteers themselves or representatives of organisations – bodies or agencies, already engaging in community development and improvement.
In contrast, people who are non-traditional or excluded learners, or who are perhaps those who need to benefit the most from a local community strategy, are also probably the least prepared and skilled to contribute.
There is a Central Government requirement that the whole approach should be prioritised for inclusion.
THE LEARNING FOR WORKERS
There are crucial challenges for us, who as workers have a learning component within our community-based work with adults, and concerns for improving the quality of the lives of local people and their communities:
- We may need to learn how to connect ourselves, and our work, effectively with the community strategy and with planning and decision bodies.
- Within our work we may need to learn how to ensure that those adults we work with, can also make effective connections with the strategy.
- We may also need to influence lead bodies (working groups and forums), to promote better participation by local people within the strategy and plans and this may need the bodies to recognise that potential participants need opportunities to develop their own capacity before they can participate effectively.
- We must learn how to enable our learners – the people we each work with, to become confident and skilled to participate and contribute to the shaping of community strategy outcomes, to address their own perceived needs and those of their neighbourhoods and communities.