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Community Development National Occupational Standards Evaluation Framework

2009 has seen the publication of the revised Community Development National Occupational Standards (CD NOS). The CD NOS outline the skills, values and practice principles required for community development work and define what is good quality community development work practice.

Sponsored by the four key agencies above, the aim of this piece of work is to develop a draft Community Development (CD) evaluation framework for wide consultation. It seeks to re-look at how we measure the impact and value of community development, to support CD organisations nationally reflect on and improve practice, and to be accountable to funders using a common language coherent with the NOS.

The evaluation framework will draw on previous experience and models and be developed using a wide Reference group. It is integral to the project that viewpoints are gathered from a Reference Group of organisations (and individuals) who are recognised as having either extensive experience or a professional interest in developing evaluation frameworks or activities and/or extensive experience of applying CD NOS in practice. It will consist of a mix of practitioners and strategic organisations (most of whom have good links with the wider field of CD) who are committed to promoting the evaluation framework on different levels: local, regional and national.

What are the CD NOS?
Developed by the Federation for Community Development Learning (FCDL) and the Lifelong Learning Sector Skills Council supported by a project steering group, the CD NOS will be widely used in training and skills development. The final formatted version is now available here or can be downloaded from the LLUK website. Download CD NOS 2009 here

In the new CD NOS, the definition of Community Development is expressed in the following key purpose: Community Development is a long-term value based process which aims to address imbalances in power and bring about change founded on social justice, equality and inclusion. The process enables people to organise and work together to:

• identify their own needs and aspirations
• take action to exert influence on the decisions which affect their lives
• improve the quality of their own lives, the communities in which they live, and societies of which they are a part

The revised standards contain five key values:

• Equality and Anti-discrimination
• Social Justice
• Collective Action
• Community Empowerment
• Working and Learning Together

And seven Key Areas that between them contain 25 standards:

1. (Core): Understand and Practice Community Development
2. Understand and Engage with Communities
3. Take a Community Development Approach to Group Work and Collective Action
4. Promote and Support a Community Development Approach to Collaborative and Cross-sectoral Working
5. Support Community Learning from Shared Experiences
6. Provide Community Development Support to Organisations
7. Manage and Develop Community Development Practice

What is a monitoring and evaluation framework?
A monitoring and evaluation framework identifies:

• clear aims and objectives
• indicators for processes, outputs/ effort, outcomes/ effects, impact/ longer term changes
• ways of collecting data and managing records
• arrangements for gathering analysing and reporting project data
• proposals for ways in which m/e will be fed back into decision making

Why is this work important?
The aim of the work is to jointly develop an evaluation framework that is useful to and usable by practitioners and managers, and to develop the visibility, understanding and valuing of community development. However, this needs considerable time and energy from the sector if it is to be successful.

For further information about the partners:

www.cdx.org.uk

www.cdf.org.uk

www.fcdl.org.uk

www.manchester.groundworknw.org.uk