The VCSE Academy is a work in progress that will continue to evolve as the goals and needs of charities, community groups and social enterprises change over time.
As a platform that brings together the best of the VCSE sector, the Academy’s current and future offer is very much designed with and for local organisations – to ensure it provides the right kind of learning at the right price and in the most effective way. This means organisations are able to shape training to develop their people, and the Academy remains relevant, responsive and forward-looking.
As well as gathering intelligence on organisations’ need through training evaluation and Voscur’s support service, the Academy also runs an External Intelligence Group of learning stakeholders that meet regularly to review and plan future support. If you’re interested in joining the group and attending future meetings, do let us know. Originally an informal group including staff interested in professional development, people with specific responsibility for training coordination and other partners, it’s now an integral part of the VCSE Academy. It’s also complemented by an Internal Intelligence Group of Voscur staff that continue to gather ongoing training and capacity building needs through direct support work and research. Together these two groups work to develop the Academy’s future services.
The overall aim is to facilitate a continuous cycle of learning and improvement that provides:
- People with the new skills they need;
- Support to apply these new skills in their particular roles;
- Peer networks to enable people to reflect on their new approaches and ways of working;
- Opportunities to identify further learning and routes to satisfying and effective personal and professional development.
This is illustrated below, with services highlighted as:
- Live (currently available to all organisations)
- Pilot (currently testing with selected groups)
- Future (currently being researched in response to demand and/or need)
At the moment, we are working with customers and partners to research and develop the next round of VCSE Academy offers which include:
- Peer networks;
- Action learning sets;
- Coaching and mentoring;
- Self-directed learning;
- A leadership development programme tailored for social enterprises led by and/or serving communities experiencing inequality.
If your organisation would like to discuss learning needs the VCSE Academy could help you address, please get in touch.
If you’d like to promote your current training courses via the VCSE Academy, do let us know which course would be relevant to local charities, community groups or social enterprises.