Scottish Government

4 CAPACITY BUILDING

4.1 Research for this resource guide found that disability organisations engage with public bodies to influence policy and practice. However, their capacity to engage is affected by the resources they have, by organisational factors, their reputation and their ability to build relationships with the 'right' people in public bodies. Their ability to engage is also heavily influenced by the engagement policies and practices of public bodies, for example, the resources dedicated to engagement, the skills and attitudes of people in public bodies and organisational factors.

4.2 Capacity building has been identified as an essential aspect of engagement with all sectors of the community, but is particularly important to ensure that disabled people and their representative organisations have the means to access consultations and decision making processes. This section looks at both general and disability-specific capacity building and cites case studies which are models of good practice

4.3 The Involvement Standard of the National Standard for Community Engagement⁷ was originally called 'Building Capacity' and includes guidance on how to respond to training and development needs. The Indicators for the Involvement Standard include:

• All participants have access to support and to opportunities for training or reflection on their experiences, to enable them and others to take part in an effective, fair and inclusive way.
• Each party identifies its own learning and development needs and together the participants regularly review their capacity to play their roles.
• Where needs are identified, the potential of participants is developed and promoted.
• Resources, including independent professional support, are available to make the most of the competence and understanding of individual participants and the engagement system as a whole.

4.4 Don't Treat Us All the Same³ recommends the following capacity building mechanisms for public agency staff as well as disabled people:

• Provide awareness training on the needs of equalities groups to all public sector staff.
• Use trainers from your target group to provide training for all staff on equalities issues. Hold regular joint training events for staff and community representatives. It brings people together, helps challenge stereotypes and builds relationships.

4.5 Communities Scotland¹⁶ cites Countdown East End - a literacy project that uses peer educators and offers a model that can be adapted for building capacity within the disability sector. The system of peer educators has had a 'cascade' effect on others - part of their role is to identify other potential educators and to encourage full name ( PEEPS) course participants to become actively involved in wider social justice issues in their communities.

4.6 As part of the Countdown East End project peer educators and literacy learners have been encouraged to look at wider community activity in the area. Much of the literacy learning activity that takes place has focused on decision making in the East End of Glasgow and has included visits to SIP board meetings and City Council area committee meetings.

4.7 Glasgow Disability Alliance ( GDA) produced Sharing Good Practice: Coaching for Change⁸, a GDA pilot course which aimed to put disabled people at the heart of the decision making process on what, where and how they participate in lifelong learning. Ten disabled learners, with a wide range of impairments, attended a preliminary workshop at GDA's Learning Festival in June 2007. Following this, participants committed to a series of 6 sessions over 3 months (leading up to enrolment and start of autumn lifelong learning courses) on setting learning goals, which involved them committing to future actions for themselves; to use personal support networks in identifying barriers; and coming up with solutions to access or sustain a learning activity.

4.8 Communities Scotland Community Engagement How To Guide - Techniques¹⁶ lists a number of capacity building techniques. These could be used to develop the capacity of disability organisations and disabled people and are shown in the boxes below.