ESB: Review of Standards for
Community Development
Despite the strange times we have been living through, there has been much work going on the background and we are seeking your help to progress our review of Community Development Practitioner Knowledge and Skills. We plan to spend the next 9 months reviewing what we have that still works and what doesn’t and we'd like to invite you to find out more and get involved. Click here for more information.
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The Endorsement and Quality Standards Board for Community Development Learning (ESB) was set up in 1997 through a series of community development conferences in England called Towards 2001.
ESB aims to provide a robust system of endorsement of quality for all types of training and learning in Community Development. Our role is to ensure quality standards in training and learning for community development practitioners. ESB contributes to a proficient community development workforce accessing high quality learning through the endorsement of different learning opportunities.
ESB is an independent company ltd by guarantee and has chosen not to seek public funding; it generates income through its endorsement processes and its paid for consultancies with universities and other organisations who wish to develop new community development programmes.
ESB engages with the wider field of community development learning through its involvement in:
- The development and updating of the Community Development National Occupation Standards
- Creating new qualifications
- Contributing to the QAA benchmarks for Youth and Community Work and engaging in consultations
- Consulting and working with others to establish the criteria for endorsement
- The ETS committee of NYA. ESB is recognised by NYA as an equal endorsement/ validation partner; ESB has a seat on the ETS and together ESB and the ETS undertake joint validations of youth and community programmes
- Having a seat on the TAG secretariat and undertakes joint work with TAG.
- Working in partnership with other bodies, sometimes running workshops at their conferences
- Being involved in international work
- Commissioning research into relevant aspects of community development practice and learning
- The steering group for the research being conducted By IVAR for the Local Trust
ESB: Our Repsonse and Guidance for Covid-19 (coronavirus)
As a response to the ongoing developments for HEIs in readiness and response to COVI-19 (Coronavirus) preparations, the following guidelines are being applied by ESB:
The potential consequences of COVID-19 (including the temporary closure of settings) are that some students may be prevented from completing the required assessed professional practice as part of their ESB endorsed programme. This ESB guidance is intended to assist with managing and minimising disruption to students and HEIs while seeking to ensure that the quality of degree programmes is not compromised.
The assumption in the guidance is that programme design will not change as a result of an outbreak of Covid-19 but that HEI’s will use flexibility in how practice is embedded in the curriculum over the duration of a programme. In all situations, we are keen to work alongside HEIs to ensure that no students are at risk of not achieving the standards because insufficient time had been afforded to practice, whilst ensuring care to trainees’ wellbeing and safety.