FCDL Conference & AGM, 5 October 2009, BVSC, Birmingham

Thanks to everyone who attended our one day conference and AGM. At the event, we discussed the three themes below in order to progress the discussions and debates towards a UK wide conference that FCDL is planning to organise in partnership with others later in the year.

• Introducing and using the new national occupational standards for Community Development
• Discussing and influencing the new Community Development qualifications framework
• 'Professionalising’ Community Development

The workshop sessions included discussions on:

1. Getting to know and use the new Community Development national occupational standards: Many FCDL members were among the hundreds of Community Development practitioners who actively contributed to the review and rewriting of the national occupational standards. There is a new definition, five key values and seven key areas which cover 25 standards. There is a lot of enthusiasm and anticipation about how we can use and promote them.

2. What should a new Community Development learning and qualifications framework look like?: LLUK is currently undertaking a project to determine what qualifications are needed for Community Development. This workshop provided one of the first opportunities for Community Development practitioners to collectively participate in the discussion.

3. Professionalising Community Development - the why, why not and if so how?: This debate has been around for years and current circumstances and developments have brought it to the fore again. The England Standards Board restarted the debate with a discussion paper and recent CDX regional events have begun to explore the issue. FCDL's starting point is that we need to be clear why we are talking about professionalisation and what it means, rather than being driven to it, and we want to ensure that any professionalisation process is inclusive and anti-discriminatory and reflect Community Development values.