Practical Community Development

A conference for community development workers by community development workers.

Practicing community development is fun, creative and exciting but like many good things, difficult to do well. This conference is an opportunity for people carrying out community development (across Greater Manchester) to find out more about community development work, refresh their skills, build connections with other community development practitioners and find out what is going on in Manchester and further afield.

The conference will be interactive, fun and friendly with useful resources for you to take away.

At the conference there will be:

• Introduction to Community Development Work Practice
• A very short history of community development in Manchester
• Collective exercise about values in community development work

An opportunity to attend 4 out of a selection of quick learn workshops including:

• Ending Well and Evaluating
• Great Flip-charting
• Walking in Moccasins
• Politics of Furniture
• Using Ground Rules
• And many more….

An opportunity to attend 1 in-depth workshop

• Women-led Savings Schemes: the value of local and global community exchange.
• One Person’s Failure is Another Person’s Success
• Reflection: An essential ingredient of good community work.
• Advanced Group-work and Facilitation
• Participatory Approaches and the Power of lived experience (TBC)

Our aim is to make this a conference that you will remember and value.

Drinks and food will be provided

All workshops will be allocated on the day on a first come, first served basis.

This conference is organised by Manchester’s Community Development Work Practice Group and is for anyone in Manchester and Greater Manchester who is doing community development and wants to refresh their practice and/or learn more. The group is committed to the principles and practice described in the Community Development National Occupational Standards.

More details on the workshops:

Reflection: An essential Ingredient of good community work
This workshop will help participants to explore why reflection is fundamental to successful community development work, to share experiences of what works and have a go at reflecting on your work using various models.

Advanced Group-Work and Facilitation
What is going on in groups at deeper levels?  What is our role as CD workers and facilitators when groups struggle with difference and unequal power? Let's dive in together and learn about some of these deep sea creatures, so that community groups and organisations can thrive and take effective action together.

Women-led Savings Schemes: the value of local and global community exchange

Since March 2016 a new kind of savings scheme has been emerging in Greater Manchester based on the approaches of one of the largest grassroots movement in the world Slum/Shack Dwellers International. This workshop (facilitated by local Manchester community leaders and activists from the Kenyan Slum Dwellers Federation, Muungano Wa Wanavijiji) will look at how women-led savings schemes catalyse resident-led neighbourhood development and why community-to-community exchanges are critical to the process.

One Person’s Failure is Another Person’s Success
Failure is too strong a word – as fundamentally this is about perceptions. There may well be times when something happens that IS catastrophic to CDW, usually when an organisation commissioning the work changes plans, re-organises, shuts things down, moves workers, doesn’t really understand what CDW is, or the money runs out etc. However, within CDW, what might be perceived initially as a failure is actually a mishap, a temporary setback, that can then be a starting point for change, for re-organising, taking power, creating and owning something that works.

Cost
Public Sector: £50
Voluntary Sector £20
Less, if paying the full amount means that you can’t come and you really want to come (contact us).

Please see the attached document for further information 

Our gratitude to Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust for their financial contribution which has helped to make this conference possible.