Building Strong Communities
Edinburgh’s communities are strengthened when local people come together to identify their communities’ needs and issues and are enabled with help from our Capacity Building teams to change things for the better. This help includes encouraging people to become involved in community organisations, activities and structures and assisting individuals and groups to develop their confidence, knowledge and skills in identifying community issues and developing campaigning strategies.
Skills training can assist both individuals and community organisations’ committees or boards in achieving their own goals and developing the confidence to work for and with their own community, and we are able to offer training tailored to meet individual and organisational needs. We can also assist in delivering training in such areas as community planning or community engagement.
Support to voluntary organisations
Our Capacity Building teams assist voluntary community organisations, large and small, throughout Edinburgh. The type of organisations we work with range from youth work agencies to advice and advocacy organisations to independent community centres.
The support we give includes working with organisations to identify their objectives and targets and carry out a needs assessment, develop programmes and recruit volunteers and staff, assistance with seeking out funding sources, advice on committee procedures and identifying appropriate sources of technical advice. A number of community organisations receive a revenue grant from the City of Edinburgh Council and we help to ensure that this funding is effectively spent.
Some areas of the city require greater resources due to numbers of people who are unemployed, in poor health, in receipt of benefits or who lack of qualifications and are disadvantaged through having inadequate housing and community facilities, and we support projects which receive Community Regeneration funding in these areas.
Partnership working
Partnership working enables a range of skills and resources from different agencies to be brought to bear on particular local issues or to develop a particular project, and we work in partnership both with other parts of City of Edinburgh Council and external organisations and agencies. Partnerships can be short life working groups or ongoing support to a particular community organisation. Some, but not all, are Community Learning & Development led.
One important area of work where partnership working is crucial is the development of Community Learning Plans in local areas throughout the city. These are led by Community Learning & Development and enable a number of agencies and local people to identify and fill gaps in the provision of learning opportunities and work toward better coordination of existing learning opportunities.
Community planning
So that local people can participate meaningfully in the development of new community planning structures in local Neighbourhood Partnerships and have real influence on decisions that affect them and their communities, we offer support to individuals and organisations in the form of training, information and advice.
