Leaflet for the Together We Can conference November 16 2005
Engagement is central to government policy – whether that’s involving service users, enhancing democracy, building local partnerships, or developing policy with interests outside government.
There is a wealth of good practice advice on engagement, and many practitioners working both as trainers and consultants, and within organisations.
However, it can be difficult for civil servants to keep up with the latest developments, and to adopt the new ways of working needed to deliver the benefits promised by wider participation.
Over the next six months the Department for Constitutional Affairs will be working with other departments and practitioners to pilot ways in which civil servants can learn the practicalities of engagement. We hope people involved in the first programme will then help us develop more learning networks.
We are looking for up to 50 people in government to join us in creating three action learning networks, and also for practitioners interested in sharing their experience.
Civil Servants:
If you are in government, you may be interested if:
By getting involved in these networks you will:
In order to participate usefully you will, of course, need to commit some time – but much of your commitment may be organised as you wish in face-to-face or online interactions. The programme will be flexible – and fun.
Practitioners:
While the focus of the programme will be on civil servants, we want to engage with practitioners. In order to do this we will be organising some joint events, looking for useful material about engagement, encouraging informal exchanges, and making public much of what we develop. Further ideas on working with practitioners will be welcome.
If you are interested as a civil servant or practitioner please get in touch (see below)
… and tell us a bit about your work and your interest in the programme. We’ll then provide more information on next steps.
The action learning networks will be developed with DCA by David Wilcox and Drew Mackie of Partnerships Online. Diane Warburton and Richard Wilson of Involve will contribute to the programme and also run a parallel evaluation programme of both the action learning programme, and other engagement initiatives.
This project is part of a broad programme being developed at the DCA which aims to help those within government build their capacity and skills to engage with the public.
If you would like to know more about the programme, email us , subscribe for updates (see left sidebar) or leave a comment here
Download a leaflet with this information here