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Approach: How to take your first steps
It is recommended that you also read the section on Leadership and
Management as it provides guidance on leadership and management in embedding sustainable development into your organisation. The most important thing to bear in mind is securing top level commitment within your organisation from the outset. In an ideal world the action taken around community and business will be part of a whole organisational commitment to sustainable development. As such, it will be integrated with the overall vision, strategy, action planning, resourcing and governance that exist around that.
If you need to build a separate business case for enhanced community and business engagement, however, the best place to start is to set up a staff working group (or to use the sustainable development group if there is one in existence). This should include a range of people as well as someone from senior management or a reporting line to senior management and should work across all areas of sustainable development, not only community and business.
There should also be a mechanism to capture the opinions of external organisations and individuals as well as learners (and perhaps involve them in the group at a later date). In its infancy, this will help to make the business case to and lobby senior management. It will also help align the argument for enhanced community engagement with current and future provider planning and activity.
From this, the group can help shape some broad priorities for engaging with communities and business appropriate to the provider, such as:
One very comprehensive tool that can help you establish the profile of the local community and identify priorities is the step by step Community Audit developed by Renewal.Net, which can be applied to a range of organisations and situations, not least the FE sector.
Management as it provides guidance on leadership and management in embedding sustainable development into your organisation. The most important thing to bear in mind is securing top level commitment within your organisation from the outset. In an ideal world the action taken around community and business will be part of a whole organisational commitment to sustainable development. As such, it will be integrated with the overall vision, strategy, action planning, resourcing and governance that exist around that.
If you need to build a separate business case for enhanced community and business engagement, however, the best place to start is to set up a staff working group (or to use the sustainable development group if there is one in existence). This should include a range of people as well as someone from senior management or a reporting line to senior management and should work across all areas of sustainable development, not only community and business.
There should also be a mechanism to capture the opinions of external organisations and individuals as well as learners (and perhaps involve them in the group at a later date). In its infancy, this will help to make the business case to and lobby senior management. It will also help align the argument for enhanced community engagement with current and future provider planning and activity.
From this, the group can help shape some broad priorities for engaging with communities and business appropriate to the provider, such as:
- improving engagement with local employers in specific sectors;
- improving security on site, for example decreasing vandalism and graffiti to the benefit of local neighbourhoods;
- attracting more learners from the local community and helping them into local employment; and
- working in partnerships at the regional and local level to improve public transport links for learners and staff.
One very comprehensive tool that can help you establish the profile of the local community and identify priorities is the step by step Community Audit developed by Renewal.Net, which can be applied to a range of organisations and situations, not least the FE sector.
