The Partners Project is an exciting new initiative from Leeds Communities Strategic Partnership Board: aimed at developing models of collaborative working between communities and public sector bodies.
The ‘Partners Project’ comprises three locality based projects and a city wide process of identifying and exploring the nature of community development and support work carried out by staff in the public, voluntary and community sectors.
The purpose of the projects is fundamentally seen as vehicles to:
- Develop a model of how Leeds City Council (and public and voluntary sector partners) can work more collaboratively with communities in a way that increases community voice and influence and results in more empowered communities. Implicit within this is the need for a cultural change by public bodies to listen, hear and take action as a result of increasing the voice of communities.
- Understand the ways in which the public sector can promote and encourage community led development
- Share learning across the city leading to the models developed being embedded where appropriate in mainstream services. The evaluation and sharing of learning will be ongoing throughout the lives of the projects.
These are 1 year projects and are designed to capture learning and provide opportunities for demonstrating different ways of working. The main success will be in relation to the extent to which learning has taken place and both informed and influenced the way Leeds works with communities, although there will be clear local outcomes and community benefits.
We are now looking for three community facilitators to play a key role in the locality projects, who are experienced and skilled in community development, partnership working and facilitation. A project summary, brief and role description can be obtained from
http://cogs.uk.net/index.php?page=Partners_project