Long-term education of consultants

This project was started thanks to previous experience of PDCS in educating people working in the nonprofit sectors in Czech and Slovak republics. As early as 1999, 24 participants graduated from the first long-term training program for consultants in Slovakia. The subsequent training program was attended by 20 Czech and Slovak consultants.

Since January 2003 till December 2004, PDCS started another program with an international group of 18 consultants and 8 mentors.

With this project we aimed:

to promote long-term stability and development of nonprofit organizations in Czech Republic and Slovakia,
to increase professionalism of service provided by consultants to NGOs in the Czech Republic and Slovakia,
to strengthen supervisory skills of consultants and senior consultants,
to promote Czech-Slovak cooperation through exchange of experience in the nonprofit sector,
to help create groups, informal structures and associations, and
to set up performance standards for consultants for their further professional growth.

The project objectives were to provide for the nonprofit sectors in Slovakia, Czech Republic and elsewhere:

18 highly qualified certified consultants capable of delivering consultation services at a professional level, and
8 mentors providing supervision to other consultants.

The speciality of this project is supervision and personal support offered to consultants by mentors and tutors during the entire project.

Project partcipants have attended/passed:

96 hours of training,
96 hours of practical workshops,
48 hours of seminars,
at least 20 hours of supervision, and
self-study during the entire project.

Following successful completion of the conditions, participants received a certificate of their professional capacity as consultants, based on accreditation from the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic.

Photographs from trainings/ events

Selection of events:

On September 30, 2004, a final evaluation meeting was held in Brno of project participants - consultants, their mentors and tutors.
On November 10-12, 2004, the 2nd open seminar was held in Brno titled "Evaluation – Principles and Methods of Program Evaluation". Dušan Ondrušek and Karolína Miková led this event for 20 consultants and evaluators who have already conducted or are going to conduct evaluation for nonprofit organizations, community partnerships and public sector institutions.
On November 25-26, 2004 , the Visegrad Conference on Trends in Consulting in V4 Countries was held in Bratislava, organized by PDCS in cooperation with the VIA Foundation, Czech Republic; CSDF, Hungary; and SPLOT, Poland. The conference was attended by 60 participants from these countries while 40 of them took active part through presentations, facilitation of workshops etc.

In the future, we are planning a continuation of the training program for Czech and Slovak consultants with a possible involvment of other Visegrad countries (Hungary and Poland).

The project was supported by:

The project was coordinated by Natália Kušnieriková and Lenka Rapošová.