Fourth Action

Equality Advocates Project Summary

Background

This project builds on the central aim of the NE VCS Equalities Coalition to ‘facilitate a VCS user-led collective voice on equality in the North East.’ It does this by inviting Coalition partners to widen involvement in its work, by supporting the development of a network of local or sub-regional action learning support groups. These will offer accredited learning and opportunities for shared reflection to local people, who will be supported in extending their understanding of a range of diversity perspectives, and in taking on opportunities to advocate for equality in policy settings.The project’s success also depends on working to achieve recognition from public sector partners for the equality advocate role and to create real chances to influence change.

Aim

The aim is to establish recognition for the role of equality advocates, who are “people who are skilled in advocating for an equal society”. Equality Advocates seek to understand multiple causes of inequalities and prejudices in society and to work singly and with others to tackle discrimination. Equality Advocates carry out their role not only by learning about discrimination legislation but also by enabling/supporting people in holding public services to account. The advocates come usually from activism within single diversity strands, so the process is enabling them extend their scope and understanding in the light of increasingly pan-equalities approaches. The aim of this programme is to form local and sub-regional support groups for advocates, to work together to promote pan-equality practices which will be able to feed into local, sub regional and regional policy development. Future work will involve running repeat residential training events in the region for advocates and further supporting the advocates in sub-regional action learning networks and by sharing the lessons learnt from the process with other equalities networks.

Methodology

The approach will be to build on previous activity, including research on the equality advocate role in phase one of the CADE project, and the recent equality advocate event, both of which generated interest from across the region from a range of individuals and partner organisations. The whole process is one of action research, with the aim of informing the further development of the programme in the longer term.

Host Organisations

The project coordinators will recruit and support 5 host organisations, which will be drawn from a range of diversity perspectives and localities.

The role of a host organisation is to:

  • Take part in an introductory workshop for host organisations, which will explore action learning approaches, and agree a schedule for the project.
  • Recruit, with support from the project coordinator, a group of around 8 people from a variety of diversity perspectives, to form an action learning group
  • Host two action learning sets with the group, one in June, one in July
  • Take part in a further one day and half day workshop on skills for advocates, along with members of the local group.
  • Contribute to the seminar for policy makers to help promote the equality advocate role
  • Take part in project evaluation

Members of host organisations are welcome to join the programme as equality advocates in their own right and take part in accredited learning opportunities.

The identification and facilitation of ‘host’ organisations will enable them to develop the host role in ways that fit with their culture rather than expecting a uniform approach. Their time and commitment will also attract backfill funding. A budget of £1,330 is available for each host organisation.

Accredited learning programme

The accreditation of learning opportunities will be offered as part of the coordination role, and integrated into sessions so that participants can gain formal recognition for their involvement at the same time as identifying their own priorities and learning needs. This will be achieved by drawing on action learning methodology, which keeps the focus on the group identifying its own issues and solutions.The learning will relate to the NOCN Level 2 Certificate inCommunity Development and is likely to include

  • A refresh on equality and diversity awareness
  • The priorities for their area of diversity, including some strategic background
  • How best to communicate these priorities to other diversity groups and policy makers
  • Understanding of good quality practices in engagement
  • Reflecting on practice

Event with policy makers

The proposed methodology for the event with policy makers will draw on the ‘whole systems’ approach, inviting mixed groups of public sector partners and local advocates to work together towards real progress in establishing recognition for the advocate role and advocates’ issues.

The team would expect to work closely with other Coalition members who would like to take a pro-active role in the project.

Timeline

Activity / Milestone
Plan baseline survey, monitoring
and evaluation framework / 22 May
Coordinate and deliver publicity through networks for the programme / 22 May
Coordinate the recruitment, training and support of 5 host organisations / 28 May
Coordinate the delivery of training for 40 equality advocates and first action learning sets / End June
Work with another member of the Coalition Management Group with expertise in accreditation to accredit Equality Advocate learning for an estimated 15 Advocates / Mid July
(through NCDN centre)
Second action learning sets / Mid July
Interim evaluation of the project including satisfaction surveys of the learning sets. / Mid July
Case studies completed / 22 July
Organise an event which will link Equality Advocates with public sector (50 delegates) / Proposed date 27 July
Final evaluation report incorporating case studies from learning set. / 4 Aug

Contact Details

Main contact:

Julia Lyford, Fourth Action, Bell View, 33, West Street, Belford, Northumberland, NE70 7DY 07775 817544

Associates:

Hala Zaluczkowska – Fourth Action: 01668 219879

Geof Armstrong and community engagement team –

Northumberland Community Development Network

01670 517176

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