UNIT 12: LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• To present a basic introduction to structures in the public sector and how they work.
• To develop thinking about participation and citizenship.
• To develop an awareness of public policy-making processes and scope for community involvement/influence

UNIT 12: TUTOR SUMMARY NOTES

EXERCISE 1: RECAP FROM UNIT 11 AND INTRODUCTION TO UNIT 12 (15 minutes)

The aim of this exercise is to remind participants about the main themes of the last session and connect that to what is being covered in this unit.

EXERCISE 2: PARTICIPATION AND CITIZENSHIP (45 minutes)

The aim of this exercise is to introduce ideas about participation and citizenship and ways in which people can try to influence public services. It is useful to try and link the ideas from Units 5 and 6 in here and bring in people’s own experiences of influencing Public Service delivery.

EXERCISE 3: DEMOCRACY AND DECISION-MAKING (45 minutes)

The aim of this exercise is to try and get people thinking about where they can go to and how they can influence services. The scenarios outlined in Handouts C and D are purely selective and you may wish to come up with different scenarios that would be more appropriate for your group.

• A useful source of information on Health Service structures is the Scottish Health Council. For direct information or the contact details for your nearest local office, phone 0141 241 6308 or visit their website at www.scottishhealthcouncil.org
• For information on Local Government contact the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA). For direct information or the contact details for your own Local Council phone 0131 474 9200 or visit their website at www.cosla.gov.uk
• For information on the Scottish Parliament phone 0131 348 5000 or visit their website at www.scottish.parliament.uk

EXERCISE 4: CASE STUDY (30 minutes)

The aim of this exercise is to let participants see how community development approaches can be used to influence service delivery.

EXERCISE 5: FACE TO FACE (90 minutes)

If you are going to run this exercise as shown you will need to do a bit of prior preparation for it. At least 3 weeks in advance you should contact a couple of people in key agencies that affect health locally. It’s a good idea to try and get one NHS and one non-NHS organisation so that comparisons or contrasts can be made. You will probably know yourself the appropriate people to invite along, perhaps a Community Health Partnership or Community Planning Manager, a Housing Manager, Director of Public Health, Local Authority Chief Executive, etc. Let them know what the course is about, why they are being invited along and what you want them to talk about. Also, your participants may want to use this exercise as part of their community research projects. If so, you may need to structure the session differently, invite different people, etc.

An alternative to this exercise (or perhaps an addition) that also needs quite a bit of forward planning is to organise a group visit to observe a Health Board meeting, Council meeting, or even a visit to the Scottish Parliament. Although this takes quite a bit of organisation it has been found to be well worth doing by those who have undertaken it.

You may want to re-visit Handout 5 from Unit 5 before the group carries out this exercise. This will help act as a reminder to the group about different levels of participation.

EXERCISE 6: COMMUNITY RESEARCH PROJECTS – UPDATE (15 minutes)

The groups should be well under way with their community research by now so this is a chance for an update.

EXERCISE 7: RECAP AND SUMMARY (15 minutes)

After quite a long session this is a useful time for folk to draw breath while you summarise the key points covered.