The Community Planning Website is based on Nick Wates' excellent Community Planning Handbook. It shows how a variety of participation methods can be used in different scenarios which range from disaster management to village revival. The site offers checklists and templates as well as general principles and resource listings.
NRM_Changelinks is "a practical guide to web resources to help people seeking to develop sustainable change in the way we manage our natural resources" compiled by Willy Allen. It has a wealth of links including many on facilitation, tools, techniques, and participatory approaches.
Participation
framework and tools
The International Association for Public Participation offers several useful
frameworks and tools including a Spectrum of participation (inform, consult,
involve, collaborate, empower) and a toolbox suggesting what techniques to use
when. The spectrum is similar to the framework
in the Guide to Effective Participation.
Smarter
partnerships
The UK Local Government National Training Organisation's site offers a toolkit
for local government and its partners. This includes a partnership health check,
review of learning and skills needed by partners and other useful tools. More
resurces are linked from consultants Educe
who produced the kit. These include...
Five
vital lessons
...for partnerships that want to create local jobs and development the local
economy. Create the conditions; think strategically; take stock to unblock;
enable not disable; facilitation skills count.
Active
Partners: Benchmarking Community Participation in Regeneration
This is a tool, developed for the Yorkshire Forward regional development agency,
to help partnerships evaluate progress towards genuine community involvement
and ensure that the benefits of their work get to the people who need them most.
Available for download from this page.
Our
partnership
Development of this UK site has been led by the Civil Service College Directorate,
the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Voluntary Sector National
Training Organisation to create "a community for individuals, networks
and organisations interested in learning more about making partnerships work."
A five stage partnership lifecycle - connecting, contracting, conflict, collaborating,
closing - is used to organise much of the material for an online course.
For recent research commissioned by the UK Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions on public participation in local government see http://www.local.detr.gov.uk/research/particip.htm
The Tenant Participation Advisory Service http://www.tpas.org.uk provides news of publications, events, training and consultancy services.
Renewal.net is being developed by the UK Government's Neighbourhood Renewal Unit to provide to provide an independent, evidence based view of what works and what doesn't in neighbourhood renewal. The 'how to' section has material on building partnerships and working in partnership.
Back to Partnerships
and Participation.