Compassionate City Foundation Programme

Compassionate Communities UK delivers a training programme to help people work together to implement the Compassionate City Charter. The word ‘city’ comes from ‘citizen’ – the 13 step charter award is applicable to any size of place and the team at CC-UK can support discussion on how best to organise. The programme consists of a 7 -week online course. Each session lasts for 90 minutes and includes a presentation of slides and videos followed by a session of discussion. The discussion will be based on the implications of the topics in the presentations. 

The programme will have 2 main areas of focus

  • Understanding of the major components to implementation of the Compassionate City Charter This includes understanding what a compassionate community is, the biological basis for it, the practice methods and how to understand power relationships in relation to the charter
  • Development of an implementation team with the aim, by the end of the programme, of having an action plan. Team relationships and identity, and the understanding of basic principles are key to successful implementation. Group dynamics will play an important role. The process of developing an action plan will be iterative, suited to local circumstances and priorities. The emphasis will be on understanding what these local priorities are. The group will develop the plan, which will include a structural component of building and sense checking of priorities with local communities. A clear focus will be placed on making sure that these priorities are determined by the communities themselves, rather than assumptions made by formal services as to what they think the priorities should be.

TOPICS COVERED 

  1. What are compassionate communities? 
  2. The biology of compassion
  3. Are we compassionate, what matters most? Circles of care 
  4. Power relationships, services, health, harms of service delivery and third sector
  5. Maps of misery and treasure maps – community development
  6. Evaluation methods and approaches to change
  7. Reflection, drafting self assessment and action planning