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Practice
Practice in CDF is all about supporting community development workers to explore, make sense of and apply their practice experiences.
Our Engaged Team works with community development practitioners, community activists, academics and policymakers. In collaboration with community development workers, we work to gather knowledge and evidence of community development practice which can be used to meet the needs of practitioners and policymakers. This evidence we gather from community development practitioners can be used to influence policy at a national level.
We work with front-line practitioners whose job it is to engage, empower and involve. We look closely at the problems which practitioners are experiencing, and give detailed insight into areas where relevant policies are not working. We work with practitioners collaboratively to develop workable solutions to these problems. Through such experience, we can ensure that our policy messages are firmly based in practice reality.
For further information, contact:
Michael Pitchford, Head of Engaged Communities
Tom Archer, Practice Officer
Jessica Mullen, Practice Officer
Current programmes
The Community Development Foundation's engaged communities team is working to explore community development approaches to building cohesion in areas affected by recent migration.
We are working to explore how community development practice can intervene to halt the slide from disaffection to hatred and intolerance, demonstrated in support for far right groups.
To support authorities in meeting this Duty to Involve, CDF's Engaged Communities Team published an authoritative guide (see Duty to Involve: Making it Work).
In a climate of tightening public finances and increasing demand for welfare services, ‘self-help' is often the default strategy for communities. Our recent work (see A Future for Community Development) shows that, in the years to come, greater resource will need to be focused on helping communities to meet their own needs.
A programme giving individuals and groups more say over local health and social care services.
CDF's Engaged Communities Team has been working with community development workers to help increase their influence within their organisations, and build a stronger case for community development.
