Tailored to local needs

Our flagship inter-agency training programme in East Manchester stimulated local police, housing, health, leisure and jobs service providers to improve how they engaged local people in determining and working towards locally-defined goals.  These workers recognised that they could not achieve their outcomes without the contribution of residents and service users at the highest level – board of housing association for example – and that voices needed to be heard from all quarters e.g. young advocates.

Watford Borough Council’s Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) training programme enabled managers in all services to develop a greater understanding of the purpose and process of conducting EIAs.   However, many of them found difficulty in implementing the spirit of EIAs rather than just treating it as a form-filling exercise.  Infrastruct therefore analysed 28 draft EIAs and subsequently gave feedback in individual and small group surgeries on them.  The Council reported that this process lifted the confidence level of managers in completing EIAs, and the number and quality that ensued was raised considerably.

Learner and organisational support mechanisms were built into the structure of the Middle Management Development Programme at Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, which was devised in consultation with senior managers and training professionals at RBH.  Between each of the four modules, participants attend an action learning set and work on a ‘live’ project defined by senior management, which they present to the executive management team at the final module.