National Collaborating Centre for Community Engagement
Action plan: October 04 – March 05
1. Establish systems for communication to inform people about the centre, to engage in a dialogue about our future plans and to explore possibilities for collaboration.
- Develop data base of potential collaborators.
- Produce a contact database of potential stakeholders/users.
- Set up an interim website and begin to post the Centre’s outputs on website.
- Establish a system for posting or linking the Centre’s outputs onto the HDA/NIHCE website.
- Consult on users requirements for a knowledge management service on community engagement.
- Begin to disseminate descriptive material about our work.
- Begin to engage with stakeholders and potential users on centre’s aims and plans for future work.
- Establish joint working with other collaborating centres.
2. Establish systems for governance
- Establish and maintain interim management arrangements for the centre.
- Agree membership of Management Group with the HDA and meeting schedule.
- Establish reporting arrangements with the HDA.
- Draft proposal on future governance arrangements for the centre.
- Agree indicators and methods for performance review.
- Establish process for evaluating the longer term impact of the centre’s work.
3. Produce plans for future programmes of work
- Agree definition of community engagement to inform future work of the centre.
- Undertake a rapid review of reviews of research based evidence on:
- The knowledge, skills and competencies required by individual practitioners and the changes needed in public sector organisations to support more effective community engagement in the public sector.
- What works and why in community engagement in the public sector.
- Collate information on the nature and scale of existing training and development opportunities and other resources aimed at developing the capacity of individual practitioners and organisations to engage more effectively with diverse communities.
- Consolidate learning about community engagement from key national initiatives inc. SAFEC, SARP, Healthy Settings work, ethnicity & health programme, EQUAL etc”.
- Survey a cross section of stakeholders on their views on the training and development opportunities needed to support more effective community engagement.
- Consult potential stakeholders and users on initial plans for the structure of the centre’s programme Produce and consult on plans for the Centre’s future programme of activities based on analysis of the different strands of work described above.
- Submit plans to the HDA/NIHCE.
Provisional plans for targeting the work of the centre
We are considering organising the centre’s programme around four main strands of work. These are:
Strand 1:
Developing and supporting a network of specialist Community Engagement Facilitators able to promote and support the learning and change necessary to deliver health inequality targets within communities of practitioners, organisations and local systems and act as mentors and coaches to others.
Strand 2:
Identifying and supporting a network of Demonstration Sites (perhaps drawn from the spearhead sites identified in the recent White Paper) experimenting and innovating with approaches to learning and change for community.
Strand 3:
Supporting the delivery of appropriate high quality learning resources and development opportunities in community engagement where clear gaps have been identified.
Strand 4:
Establishing an observatory/clearing house function to collate and disseminate information on high quality training and development opportunities in community engagement for the wider public health workforce.
If you have any comments on these plans or want to comment on other aspects of our work you will find a questionnaire asking for your views elsewhere on the website