Guidance Notes and Best Practice Guides
NE: Natural England is funding a number of pilot projects, in partnership with a wide range of environmental and community organisations, primarily in London to demonstrate what can be achieved when local communities are supported with a little expertise to get projects started and with relatively small sums of money.
Its Accessible Natural Greenspace Standard says that everyone home should be within 300 m of an accessible natural green space of at least two hectares (ha) which is equivalent in size to two football pitches. In addition, Natural England recently launched a £25m Big Lottery funded ‘Access to Nature’ scheme – to support projects that bring new audiences into contact with nature.
Press release ~ Access to Nature scheme ~ Providing Accessible Natural Greenspace in Towns and Cities ~ Accessible Urban Greenspace Standard ~ Hilly Fields ~ Weavers and Allen Gardens ~ Cromwell Bottom ~ The Warren
NICE: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence’s (NICE) public health guidance on community engagement has been launched at the LGA 2nd Sustainable Communities Conference in Liverpool. It makes recommendations about how communities can effectively be involved in the planning, design & delivery of services that can improve people’s health & well-being and address the wider social determinants of health.
Involving communities, particularly those who experience disadvantage, is central to national strategies for promoting health and well-being and reducing health inequalities. Community engagement activities typically range from one-off consultation exercises through to longer-term activities which allow communities to participate fully in the planning and delivery of services.
The NICE guidance, which is for those working in the NHS and other sectors who have a direct or indirect role in community engagement, presents four important, interlocking themes which represent the ideal scenario for effective community engagement:
* Prerequisites for success
* Infrastructure
* Approaches (to support & increase levels of community engagement)
* Evaluation
In addition to the guide, the following implementation support tools will be available on the website shortly: a slide set - implementation check-list - audit criteria
Press release ~ ‘Community engagement to improve health’ ~ LGA 2nd Sustainable Communities Conference in Liverpool ~ Healthcare Commission ~ Healthy Communities - Improvement and Development Agency for local government (IDeA) ~ Healthy communities products and tools ~ Planning for healthy communities ~ The Beacon Scheme - Healthy communities ~ Healthy communities, healthy partnerships - a learning symposium ~ DH: Healthy Living Centres
LSN: As the demands on post-16 education continue to grow, so do the demands on the sector’s leaders and managers. The Learning Skills Network is helping learning providers respond to these demands through the launch of its Leadership and Management Unit.
The unit will deliver an package of leadership & management programmes and services. Combining practical tools and techniques, it will offer ways to make a difference in both the long & short term as well as sustaining development, improving performance and facilitating change. Action learning, coaching and mentoring skills will form an integral part of this.
