Enabling Collaborative Leadership

Enabling Collaborative Leadership is a programme of work delivered by Workforce Scotland.

The focus of the work is “on core knowledge, skills, behaviours and approaches which support the development of collaborative leadership. Participants will experience tangible benefits of working collaboratively and will have an explicit role to demonstrate and support the development of collaborative working in their own organisations“.

The work is underpinned by an action research approach, which is believed to provide a deeper way of understanding the complexities of the challenges facing public services, and supporting people to move forward.

Find out more about the Pioneer Programme here.

Detroit Soup

Detroit SOUP’s mission is to promote community-based development through crowdfunding, creativity, collaboration, democracy, trust and fun. With key partnerships and community leaders, the hope is to change the way people engage with the democratic process by establishing neighborhood relational hubs across the city. In their own words, “SOUP offers a space where people can connect. The rest is up to attendees, but wonderful things can happen when people come together, and SOUP stories are evidence of that”.

“More information in this short film.

Barry the red bench

As part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project entitled ‘Representing Communities: Developing the creative power of people to improve health and well-being’ – Barry ‘ The Red Bench’ explores the notion of outdoor spaces and the lack of seating in urbun areas. Taking Barry for walks around Dennistoun encouraged the local community to take a break and seat from their busy day and aimed to present the amazing characters of Dennistoun in an uplifting way.

Imagine communities

The imagine programme is a five-year project running from 2013 to 2017 which brings together a range of different research projects working together across universities and their, mostly local, communities.

Of interest are the findings of this first study suggest that successful community-university partnerships have a set of characteristics that include the following:

  •  Partners accept that partnership working is an ongoing learning experience
  •  Partners manage to reframe differences into an opportunity, rather than an obstacle
  •  Partners make an effort to become aware of existing power dynamics and take practical steps to address these
  •  Partners pay attention to the social aspect of the partnership
  •  Partners play to each other’s strengths and acknowledge that equity and fairness in the partnership is compatible with different levels of involvement by different partners and, if applicable, varying levels of involvement over the course of partnership
  •  Partners choose a level of formality appropriate to their mission.

The site gathers knowledge from a range of different projects to imagine how communities might be different. Visit the site here

Community Lovers Guide to the Universe

The Community Lover’s Guide to the Universe is a growing collection of inspirations, stories and book editions, bringing together the experiences of many amazing people and their innovative projects – people who are actively and creatively making community, together. The website provides a collection of stories, blog posts and reflective essays on this emergent new community culture.

Creative Gatherings

Creative Gatherings provide a radical alternative to traditional meetings and have arisen from a range of arts based initiatives over the last decade. Using creative curation techniques to bring together groups of people to develop flat heirarchies and cultures of exchange, there is evidence that creative gatherings can generate new ways of working and new networks through creative practice. Creative gatherings have the following key features:

  • a neutral and independent space for the exploration of ideas free from associations with a single agenda or group/institution
  • a means to open up dialogue and generate new ideas
  • inclusivity –  diverstiy is prioritised

Creative Gatherings can influence a different kind of conversation through ‘holding’ a space that contains tensions and opposing views within it and yet, are flexible and inviting enough for participants to maintain that flexibility. Sharing food is also a common factor in encouraging new ways of working and sharing ideas more directly.

A recent example of this approach can be found in this case study from the RSA’s Citizen Power Peterborough

The Big Democracy Project

Run by National Theatre Wales, The Big Democracy Project explores how art and creativity can play a part in helping communities across Wales re-engage with the democratic process. The project aims to:

  • ask big questions about our democracy;
  • help Wales imagine the future it wants;
  • make a real change to the lives of people in Wales and beyond; and
  • instigate action through art.

Link to the full details here.

Enabling City – approach and book

Here is a blurb about the Enabling City book (that is online a free to access) that caught our attention:

“At its simplest, Enabling City is a new way of thinking about communities and change. Guided by principles such as collaboration, innovation and participation, the pioneering initiatives featured in Enabling City attest to the power of community in stimulating the kind of innovative thinking needed to tackle complex issues ranging from participatory citizenship to urban livability.”

Check out the website and see Creative Commons shared book here.

Scottish Co-production Network – IRISS chat around co-production

This is a chat that was filmed as part of the 3rd National Co-production Conference in 2014. In the video a group of staff from IRISS are talking around some of their perspectives on what co-production is, and some of the practicalities of this way of working.

Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD)

Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is an approach that is both strengths based and community driven. The positive influence of this approach is that it focuses on a local area from a competencies, capacities and resources point of view. This way of thinking and working moves on from looking at the needs of an area, to looking at the contributions of that area.