Steve Skinner Associates
8 Hollin Crescent
Leeds LS16 5ND
Tel:  0113 2254671
Click here to email

Steve Skinner Associates specialises in work on community empowerment and leadership and has been involved recently in some exciting and innovative projects.  Our support is tailor made and designed around your needs, drawing on recent research and delivered to high standards.  We can help you and your organisation in a variety of ways – do give us a ring for a chat about what you are interested in. Empowerment and leadership are now key themes for many third sector and public sector organisations and the government’s Empowerment White Paper introduces many new initiatives.

Members of a focus group on community empowerment, Park Community Initiative, Halifax 2008

Our support

The range of our empowerment and leadership development work includes:

Training – for example,  one or two day workshops on developing strengths in empowerment practice and community leadership, focusing both on practical skills and underlying principles.

• Through the Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Empowerment Partnership we have recently trained Third Sector representatives involved in LSPs.
• Through the Local Government Information Unit we train Council Members in leadership skills.
• We have trained housing outreach workers in Grimsby using a community empowerment model (jointly with Changes consultancy).
• Through the Community Development Foundation we trained community leaders from rural projects in Poland.

Facilitation – including team building and away days, reviews and planning sessions, focusing on empowerment and leadership approaches and practice. We also facilitate large scale events and conferences, using creative and participative methods.

• In 2007 we helped to plan and organise bassac’s national conference on the theme of leadership (bassac is the British Association for Settlements and Social Action Centres).
• We worked with neighbourhood leaders in inner city Leeds to develop an action plan for community involvement.

Coaching/Mentoring – one to one support sessions, direct and/or phone based, working closely with leaders in their own settings.  Steve Skinner Associates includes an experienced life coach who specialises in leadership.

Action Learning Sets – with a focus on empowerment and community leadership, usually involving a minimum of four sessions.

Research and evaluation – we can carry out reviews of your organisations’ empowerment and leadership approaches, policies and practice, involving your staff and, if appropriate, trustees and volunteers in looking at their own work.

Training trainers – usually at least two days, to help develop training skills for people wanting to train in the areas of community leadership and third sector representation; can include follow up support, advice and mentoring.

Our recent research on leadership and empowerment

 Leadership in Communities

A policy paper written for bassac that outlines a new model of leadership called ‘empowering leadership’. It was devised based on a national conference held in 2007 and reflects the experience and ideas of a wide range of practitioners, activists and managers in community organisations and centres.  It defines what ‘empowering leadership’ means and describes eight key principles that can be used to guide practice and contribute to a growing body of knowledge about community leadership.

See www.bassac.org.uk

 Skilling up for LSPs

A research report written for NAVCA (the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action) jointly with consultant Linda Mitchell, describing the findings of research with 21 voluntary and community sector representatives who are on executive boards of LSPs. It includes a new set of competencies that outline what’s involved in being a representative and which can help in the design of training programmes.

See www.navca.org.uk

Stronger Voices

Research carried out for NAVCA involved interviewing a further 26 representatives in LSPs, this time focussing on involvement in thematic partnerships.  This work further develops the competencies and will be available in due course.

Using empowering approaches in community leadership

Further research for bassac, focussing on the challenges and methods involved in acting as an empowering leader based in large community organisations and ‘anchors’.  The work will lead to a pamphlet on leadership to be published by bassac.

Hopefully this gives you some idea of our range of recent projects. We tailor our work to your needs and generally support an ‘empowering approach’, working with you to build empowerment and leadership in communities and organisations.

So get in touch to discuss your needs