Taking Part ? Capacity Building Cluster for Active Citizenship and Community Empowerment

1. Taking Part ?Capacity Building Clusterfor Active Citizenship and Community Empowerment Lincoln, Goldsmiths and Manchester Metropolitan Universities ESRC

2. Agenda • Who are we? • Where are we coming from: our approach? • Our target group: TSO partners • Key themes

3. Who are we? • Zoraida Mendiwelso-Bendek, University of Lincoln • Marjorie Mayo, Goldsmiths, University of London • Carol Packham, Manchester Metropolitan University

4. Background: building on research on ALAC/Take Part The National Take Part Network started in 2004 as Active Learning for Active Citizenship (ALAC), an action research programme funded by the Civil Renewal Unit (Home Office)./today Take Part Pathfinders at the Community Empowerment Division (CLG) The achievements of ALAC are documented in the ALAC Evaluation Report produced by experts of Goldsmith College (2006).

5. The Take Part Approach • Working with TSOs /groups from and within community based activities • Learning engagement in decision making processes and governance structures. • Learning from experience how to have an effective role in governance structures • Working in partnership with projects engaged in active citizenship aimed at strengthening civil and civic engagement or community empowerment like the Take Part Pathfinders and NEP.

6. The ‘Taking Part?’ Research Focus:Our Starting Points • There is a risk that Third Sector organisations could end up reproducing the very producer-dominated structures that they set out to challenge, in fact, a risk that may be exacerbated as Third Sector organisations play increasingly significant roles as service providers on a larger scale. In the current policy context, characterised as it is by rapid change, previous assumptions need systematic examination more urgently than ever. • Can Third Sector organisations tackle existing inequalities more effectively rather than reproducing them? How can they promote increasing social solidarity rather than increasing competition within as well as between sectors? How can infrastructure organisations best support smaller Third Sector organisations, enabling them to deliver public services in distinctive and effective ways, avoiding reproducing the dysfunctions of large bureaucracies? • And how can the long-term impacts upon individual volunteers and Third Sector organisations and groups be tracked more effectively?

7. Taking Part ? Approach • Working with Take Part partners, based in Take Part’s approach to strengthen civil & civic society, to strengthen their research capacity • VIA co-production of knowledge & expertise, emphasising participatory approaches to learning & research

8. Linking the different elements • CASE studentships, • Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, • Placements, • Vouchers • will all focus upon Taking Part? THEMES

9. For more information: Taking Part? • Zoraida Mendiwelso Bendek zbendek@lincoln.ac.uk • Marjorie Mayo m.mayo@gold.ac.uk • Carol Packham C.Packham@mmu.ac.uk