west of england consortium

Increasing Participation of Equalities Communities in the West of England

"Reaching Out: Linking In" aims to support “seldom heard” voluntary and community organisations in order to:

• Increase their capacity to deliver services to their communities, to;
• Enable them to represent their communities in mainstream decision-making arenas such as strategic partnerships; working groups; and VCS networks.

Intended Outcomes

• By 2011 - 200 West of England VCS organisations will understand how to be more inclusive of equalities communities by having increased knowledge of their issues and how to engage with them in each unitary authority area.
• By 2011 - 100 West of England VCS frontline organisations, working in and for excluded and equalities communities, are able to access high-quality infrastructure support services appropriate to their needs in each unitary authority area.
• By 2011 - 50 equalities groups accessing capacity building support from infrastructure organisations report increased ability to engage with VCS issues, local service planning development, and increased awareness of the steps they need to take to achieve this.
• By 2011 there will be a 3-5% improvement in ‘seldom heard’ communities’ engagement and participation in public service planning and delivery across the three unitary authorities through the development of an Equalities Impact Assessment Toolkit to measure policy processes.

What the Project Will Deliver – Outputs

Ongoing elements of the work plan include:

• Outreach to make personal contact with groups;
• Comprehensive training and development needs survey of these groups;
• Support to join networks;
• Provision of feedback to funders or other stakeholders;
• Support to respond to consultations;
• Training and development;
• Capacity building support where appropriate;
• Access to specialist support where needed;
• Development Officer networks supported by a specialist advisory group.