Involve offers tailored training to organisations, institutions and authorities looking to develop their skills and understanding of participatory, dialogue and deliberative public engagement processes, facilitation skills, specific engagement methods, and more.
Since our foundation in 2003, we have worked with governments, parliaments, civil society organisations, businesses, academics and the public across the UK to support a vibrant democracy where people can shape the decisions that affect their lives. As part of this, we have provided training on areas from public engagement strategy, to planning and commissioning engagement, to facilitation skills and delivering public engagement methods. Our training offer is based on our two decades of experience delivering participatory, dialogue and deliberative public engagement processes that work for both commissioning institutions, and the members of the public and stakeholders they want to engage.
Our approach
Our experience shows that training is most effective when it is:
- Tailored: We tailor all our training to the needs and desired outcomes of the organisation and people we are training.
- Applied: We cover relevant theory and practical tools, but as importantly also ask trainees to apply them to real life examples from their work during training sessions. This means that key challenges and questions surface and are addressed during the training, rather than trainees only encountering them afterwards.
- Demonstrated: We use a variety of facilitation techniques in how we deliver training sessions so people learn from what we do, not just what we say. We also make good use of case studies, where appropriate.
- Flexible: We are flexible in our approach and think on our feet, allowing us to adapt training sessions as we go to spend longer on areas that trainees find hardest and answer arising questions. On longer training courses, we also use feedback forms at the end of sessions to inform our approach to the rest of the course, where relevant.
- Interactive: We believe that trainees learn from each other not just from us; we make time for discussion and shared reflection during training sessions.
- Varied: We use varied methods to keep sessions engaging for trainees.
Our training courses come with accompanying slides and workbooks, including templates that trainees can use in their future work.
Our bespoke and off-the-shelf training
We already offer off-the-shelf and bespoke training courses. Off-the-shelf training courses are those that we deliver regularly, however we will tailor them to your specific context. Bespoke training is those that we will develop from scratch in line with your needs and wants.
Our off-the-shelf training courses include:
- Introduction to facilitation (half-day)
- Facilitation skills (full day)
- Public engagement training (full day)
- Public engagement process design (full day)
- Public engagement strategy development (full day)
Our bespoke training offer can be tailored to your specific context, or you can receive an adapted programme based on the above training courses. Examples of bespoke training could include:
- Training in a specific method, such as World Cafe or Open Space Technology
- Deliberative engagement in an online setting
- How to commission an effective Citizens’ Assembly or other deliberative mini-public
Cost
The cost of the training course below includes liaison with the organisation or institution, training design, preparation, delivery, training materials and basic direct costs. We will provide an extra trainer for each 15 participants so we can make sure we offer trainees the support they need to get the most out of the training - this is reflected in our costs. Additional travel and subsistence costs may be added depending on the location of in person training programme. Our training courses quoted are for half-day and full-day training courses, with additional sessions costed by the half-day. However, we regularly deliver two- and three-day training courses for our partners.
In person training: off-the-shelf
| Up to 15 participants | For each additional 15 participants | |
| Half day training | £3,000 | £1,800 |
| Full day training | £4,000 | £2,300 |
| Additional half days | £1,400 | £800 |
In person training: bespoke
| Up to 15 participants | For each additional 15 participants | |
| Half day training | £4,600 | £1,800 |
| Full day training | £6,000 | £2,300 |
| Additional half days | £2,800 | £800 |
Online training: off-the-shelf
| Up to 15 participants | For each additional 15 participants | |
| Half day training | £1,900 | £400 |
| Full day training | £3,200 | £800 |
| Additional half days | £1,300 | £400 |
Online training: bespoke
| Up to 15 participants | For each additional 15 participants | |
| Half day training | £3,500 | £400 |
| Full day training | £5,200 | £800 |
| Additional half days | £2,700 | £400 |
How to commission our training
If you would like to go ahead and commission training, you should first get in touch with Gary Austin ([email protected]) with the answers to the following:
- A brief introduction to you/your organisation
- What type of training you want:
- Off-the-shelf or bespoke training
- Online or in-person training
- If in-person, the location of the training
- Length of the training
- Number of participants
- Your needs for the training
- Your context: why you want or need the training
- What you want to get out of it
- Additional trainers, if applicable (if you want more than those provided for the number of participants)
- Time frames including proposed dates (if possible)
- Confirmation of the ability to:
- Provide the space and organise logistics (for in-person training), including providing a screen or projector
- Recruit the trainees
- Commit to regular communication with the Involve team
Once you have got back to us, we may need a short follow up meeting to discuss details. A follow up meeting will be essential for bespoke training.
CAMDEN’S CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLY ON THE CLIMATE CRISIS WAS FACILITATED BY A MIX OF PROFESSIONALS FROM INVOLVE AND OUR OWN COUNCIL STAFF. SOME OF US WERE ALREADY VERY EXPERIENCED AT FACILITATING EVENTS AND ENGAGING WITH RESIDENTS BUT SOME OF US FELT LESS CONFIDENT, PARTICULARLY FOR AN EVENT OF SUCH IMPORTANCE. INVOLVE PREPARED A TRAINING THAT WAS TAILORED TO OUR EVENT AND TO THE NEEDS OF THE TEAM. THE TRAINING WAS VERY DYNAMIC AND INTERACTIVE AND GAVE US ALL THE TIPS AND TRICKS WE NEEDED FOR A SUCCESSFUL EVENT.
Get in touch
Please get in touch with Gary Austin ([email protected]) if you have any questions or would like to find out more.