Since the launch last summer of the National Consumer Council's training programme for consumer representatives, A Stronger Voice, NCC has been learning from its experiences and feedback from trainers and representatives. As a result, NCC has become more flexible in delivering the training to suit the specific needs of diverse consumer representatives.
Feedback has come from courses with a wide range of organisations, many of which are involved in government initiatives that put a high priority on engaging the public. It seems that everyone is being encouraged to get involved -from parents and teenagers in the management of their social services, tenants on housing management boards, residents on local council citizens' forums, patients and carers in NHS advisory groups - you name it. A Stronger Voice has a place within all of these and the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI), recognising the wide-reaching potential of such training, has backed the project for a further year.
To train representatives in a range of committees was an objective of the project throughout the planning stages and is why A Stronger Voice is designed as an adaptable "tool kit" for trainers. Trainers can take the basic tool kit and tweak it to accommodate the needs of the group. For example, recent courses for Community Health Councils have been reworked to one day to accommodate the members' time constraints. The trainer also concentrated on public health issues using examples from a GP's practice to illustrate the consumer principles of access, choice and quality etc. The trainer working with Nene Housing Association reworked this same exercise to highlight the rights of tenants to services such as access to parking and residents' safety.
Diversity of application of the training also results form the course's adaptability to different ways of teaching: For example, Birmingham Trading Standards' own trainer ran the course in-house for members of the Birmingham Consumer Group, Neighbourhood Forums and Townswomen's Guild. Some trainees who couldn't make it on the day were given a Home Study Pack to work from. In contrast, the Consumer Council for Postal Services have recruited a National Consumer Council trainer to run local courses for each of their nine new regional committees. What is common over all the training. is that it is applied at a local level to suit the specifics of each group.
Local training is also in keeping with one of the National Consumer Council's main values - to empower people from disadvantaged communities. A Stronger Voice enables local trainers with different ethnic and social backgrounds to run the course in their own communities, adapting it as needs demand.
Flexible pricing has also been introduced to accommodate smaller, less well off, as well as national, organsations. Most cost-effective for a local a voluntary organisation is to run the course in-house, using the tutor pack and participant materials. Furthermore, in an effort to make the training even more cost saving for smaller organisations, we have introduced the option of a licence to photocopy the materials.
Because consultation is so central to the modernising government plans and authorities are so keen to consult local groups, external funding for the training may be available from local councils or health authorities and other sources. For example, Notting Hill Social Council has received a grant from their local health trust to run a pilot course in May. Similarly, Hillingdon Voluntary Action Service recently ran a two-day course for local representatives with European Social Fund money for capacity building and a grant from the local West London TEC.
In the main, the course and materials have been warmly received by both trainees and trainers. However, the views of representative trainees are continually collected and analysed to improve the quality of the training. Some modules of the course fare better then others. The proposal to scale down a theoretical discussion about citizens and consumers and to introduce more role-play is p good illustration of this. The skills of the trainer are of course important to quality - they need to be in tune with the audience, pulling in relevant arguments and dwelling on issues where necessary and skipping over other elements as the class demands.
Modifications of the pack don't stop there however. Take, for example, the Connexions Service South West (local youth careers and advisory services) who want to include teenage representatives on the management board to ensure services are youth-focused. Feedback from youth groups has indicated that the materials as they stand (i.e. designed for us oldies) need repackaging for a younger audience. Furthermore, Connexions wants particularly to encourage young people with a low level of literacy to have a say in the running of the service. Two new "funky" versions of A Stronger Voice are being developed - one for teenage representatives in general and another for young people with basic skills difficulties.
The National Consumer Council is considering similar tailoring of the toolkit with other national organisations in the health and local authority sectors which will increase the national accessibility of the training.
The National Consumer Council recognises the scale of the task if it is to realise national recognition of A Stronger Voice and achieve the goal of more effective representation for all consumers. Whilst empowering "all" consumers may be rather utopian, the project will undoubtedly make some much-needed impact.
The Food Standards Agency has, at last, found a home where all its departments can come together under one roof. It is Aviation House, 125 Kingsway, London VUG2B 6NH. The main switchboard telephone number is 020 7276 8000.
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