Civic participation and community development
Goal: To prepare participants for work in community development and in engaging citizens in public decision-making.
To give participants theoretical background on participatory approaches to planning and public decision-making and to create space for acquiring skills necessary for work with citizens, nonprofit organizations, local government and public institutions.
Graduate profile:
Graduates will be familiar with background of various participatory approaches in public decision-making. They will understand the concept of cross-sector partnerships and their relation to community development. They will get to know the possibilities for and principles of well-functioning cross-sector partnerships and they will understand the process of their development. Graduates will train the skills of preparing and designing process of community planning and they will be able to design various forms of citizen participation in management of public affairs and to asess their adequacy in a specific situation.
Total scope:
96 hours (4 x 3 days, 3 days = 24 hours) with three required three-day sessions and an option to choose fourth session of two options.
The course includes four compact sessions related to each other which give the particant an overview of civic participation and community development. The course covers three required topics and fourth optional out of two options:
Session 1: Participation of citizens in managing public affairs (24 hours)
Session 2: Cross-sector partnerships and community development (24 hours)
Session 3: Community planning (24 hours)
Session 4: Choice of two options (24 hours):
A. Civic advocacy and lobbying
B. Effective group decision-making
Included in the course is practice of the participants in between sessions and follow-up work with their case studies during sessions. Each participant attends at least one supervision meeting – either in a balint group (one-half day) or in an individual meeting with mentor (2-hour-meeting with one of the lecturers)
SESSION 1: PARTICIPATION OF CITIZENS IN MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS (24 HOURS)
1. Starting points for citizen participation in public decision-making
2. Forms of citizen participation
3. Trends and perspectives of citizen participation
- Program of public decision-making transformation (approach of F. Dukes)
- Training of skills of citizen participation
SESSION 2: CROSS-SECTOR PARTNERSHIPS AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT (24 HOURS)
1. Starting points for community development and cross-sector cooperation
2. Forms of cross-sector cooperation
3. Trends and perspectives of community development
4. Training of skills of citizen participation
SESSION 3: COMMUNITY PLANNING (24 HOURS)
1. Starting points for community planning
2. Overview of the process of community planning
3. Training of skills necessary for community planning
4. Examples of processes of community planning from Czech and Slovak Republics
SESSION 4: CHOICE OF ONE OF TWO OPTIONS:
A. CIVIC ADVOCACY AND LOBBYING
1. Strategies of civic advocacy and lobbying
- definition of terms
- starting points for civic advocacy and lobbying
- strategies for civic advocacy
2. Coalition building
3. Training of skills of civic advocacy
4. Examples of successful campaigns from Central European countries
B. EFFECTIVE DECISION-MAKING
1. Starting points for group decision-making
- Principles of interactive decision-making and facilitation (according to Strauss and Doyle)
- Conducting staff meetings, public meetings, and long-term planning process
2. Techniques to achieve and implement group decision-making
- cooperative and competitive aspects of decision-making at the level of organizations, partnerships, coalitions, and communities
- resolution of disputes between minority and majority in decisions on key issues
- effective methods of decision-making in situations of opposing interests
3. Training of facilitation skills