Latest news on the Community Learning and Development Standards Council
Events
The final meeting of the Interim CLD Standards Council was held on 19 March 2008 in Edinburgh.
March 2008
The future of Standards Council for Community Learning and Development in Scotland
Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning and the Minister for Schools and Skills, has confirmed and agreed that the new Council can continue with its plans to establish a new body in Scotland that has as its key concerns the aspirations and ambitions of current and future practitioners across the ever widening field of practice that is Community Learning and Development.
This is a key time for our field of practice and all of those who are part of it regardless of role and function.
The next stages are to discuss with Scottish Government how we take this initiative forward.
This will include a number of ways where we can update everyone who has an interest in this progress.
Thank you to everyone who attended our information and discussion sessions around Scotland and helped us get to this stage.
The next stages will be exciting, challenging and progressive. I hope we can all play a role in this one way or another.
Key themes from the information and discussion sessions
A report has now been written to outline the key themes to come from the discussions and online feedback following the various session held around Scotland during 2007/8. Nearly 800 people attended and 250 people (both event participants and others) completed an online questionnaire giving their views on the Standards Council's functions. Read the report for more details.
Recommendations of the Interim Standards Council
A recommendations paper was developed by the Interim Standards Council to inform the thinking of the first Standards Council for CLD in Scotland.
January 2008
Interim Standards Council meeting
At the January meeting the interim Standards Council discussed a proposal outlining the operational model for the Standards Council. The paper will be sent to Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning at the beginning of February for her approval.
Information and discussion sessions
The Standards Council team delivered four further information and discussion sessions during January, visiting North Lanarkshire, North Ayrshire, Falkirk and Moray. If you haven't managed to attend one of the sessions, you can express your views about the Standards Council through our short on-line questionnaire. Click here to access the questionnaire.
December 2007
Interim Standards Council meeting
At the November meeting the interim Standards Council agreed the wording of the purpose and aims of the Standards Council. Further consideration was given to the papers on governance and registration. It was agreed that a paper on Continuous Professional Development would be written.
Developing Competence: Early and Mid Career in Community Learning and Development Report
The above report by the University of Edinburgh aimed to contribute to, and support, the early career development and continuing professional development of CLD practitioners through an investigation of practice and to contribute to theories of informal / non-formal learning.
Both a Summary of the report and the Report itself are available from this website.
November 2007
Interim Standards Council meeting
At the meeting of the interim Standards Council on 29 October the following items were discussed.
- A paper on the purpose and aims of the Standards Council. Some revisions of these statements are required but it is hoped that a final statement can be presented to the council at the next meeting.
- A paper on the values and principles which those working in CLD would be expected to promote and adhere to.
- Proposals on how the Standards Council should be governed, to include both elected and appointed members
- A proposed draft model for registration.
It was agreed to develop a paper on how the Standards Council might approach continuous professional development.
Information sessions
November was a busy month for our information and discussion sessions. From comments at previous session we have now put together a list of frequently asked questions and recurring comments which are now available on our website.
Report
Developing Competence: Early and Mid Career in Community Learning and Development, commissioned by the Scottish Government and written by the University of Edinburgh, will be avilable from our website in the near future. The aim of this research was to support and contribute to the early career development and the continuing professional development of CLD practitioners by investiging current practice and contributing to theories of informal / non-formal learning.
New links page
We have now developed a new web page on the site with links to websites we have found useful in developing our thinking on the Standards Council.
September / October 2007
Meeting with Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning
Rory Macleod and Lillias Noble met with Fiona Hyslop on 11 September. The minister confirmed her support for the setting up of a CLD Standards Council. Further discussion will take place on how the council will be funded and where it will be located in the current government structure.
Interim Standards Council meetings
Following the last Interim Standards Council meeting on 29 August 2007, some work has been undertaken on further defining the Purpose and Aims of the council, drafting some ethics and values statements, developing a possible registration model, and producing a possible model of how the Standards Council might be governed.
These issues were discussed at the Standards Council meeting on 29 October 2007.
An information leaflet about the Standards Council was produced and can be downloaded from the website.
July / August 2007
Notes from Interim Standards Council meeting (6 June 2007).
Following the first meeting of the Interim Council on 6 June 2007, much of the work of the team has focused on finding out what existing and active standards bodies consider to be their role and range of responsibilities. Those representing social work, teaching, medicine, and sciences are offering a range of interesting and different perspectives to raising standards, some of which impact on registration - and vice versa - and some which influence CPD programmes.
There is interesting detail emerging on member expectations, benefits to membership and fees for different categories of membership.
Members of the team have been meeting with a range of agencies and organisations to explore impacts on this area and talk about the possible benefits that a Council could have to the CLD field.
The response is pleasingly positive- with a lot of questions at the moment still to be addressed.
In that context the team has asked for a meeting with Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary with responsibility for CLD. We need to establish the current administrations views of the development of a Standards Council for CLD. This is the case with a broad range of initiatives as the new administration marches past its first 100 days.
We will post comments and views from the minister as soon as we have them.
A key challenge for the Council is to develop terms that will be meaningful to the wide range of practitioners in our field. see, for example, the term Continuing Professional Development.
June 2007
The first meeting of the Interim CLD Standards Council took place on 6 June, 2007. The Council considered papers on professionalism, registration, continuing professional development (CPD) and CeVe.
May 2007
The support team is confirmed as:
Rory Macleod
Julie Davies
Karen Geekie
Peter Lanigan
Peggy Macnab
Helen Trataris
A letter and a fact sheet were sent out to a range of key stakeholders.
Some issues and questions raised about the standards council to date are:
- Who might the Standards Council be for?
- Will part time leaders be included?
- What about registration? Does it mean I can be de-registered?
- Why would I want to be part of this?
- How will you consult with the field?
- Who will Continuous Professional Development be for?
- Is CeVe being replaced by a Standards Council approvals function?
- Will any of the Standards Council business be directly linked to pay?
- Will it be like the General Teaching Council (GTC)?
- Where will FE colleagues fit in?
- How will the volunteering sector be included?
These and other questions will be considered by the interim council and will form part of any consultation process.
Answers to such "Frequently Asked Questions" will be posted to this site in due course.
April 2007
Following Scottish Executive cabinet approval, Learning Connections within Communities Scotland is charged with establishing an interim team to further support an Interim Standards Council that will address the remit as confirmed by the First Minister.
The support team is led by Rory Macleod and is based at Communities Scotland, 91 Haymarket Terrace, Edinburgh EH12 5HE.