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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
Focus on: London Metropolitan BSc Community Development and Leadership, endorsed: 2012-2017
Find out more about these courses at London Met by clicking here: London Metropolitan University courses Endorsed by ESB
On 14th February 2017 London Met opened their doors and held a "Love your Family Love London Met" event which allowed students who have registered to bring their children into the University for one day. The scheme was introduced as a result of course leader Patrick Mulrenan’s recent research which looked at student homelessness in London. The study found that students want to be a good role model for their children as one student said: “I just look at my children and I want them to be proud of me.”
Call for contributions from The Radical Community Work Journal - Case Studies
We have been commissioned to write a text book on community development. Part of the book is a section of case studies, and we are looking for
contributors to write some of these studies. There is no payment involved, however it is a significant publication and you will be named as the author
of the case study.
Most community development case studies are quite simple and underdeveloped. For example:
Men’s Group. Often such a case study would talk about the men in the group and focus on some of the activities they get involved in, followed by a discussion of what worked and what didn’t. Sometimes there is also some discussion of underpinning ideas, theory, values.
The case studies we are looking for are longer (around 3000 to 3500 words) and are more analytical and holistic. To take a Men’s Group as an example,
the types of things we would want to discuss would be:
- The social and economic context of the area within which the study is set.
- The age, ethnicity and social status of the men involved, and who is not included and why.
- Why these men are involved in the group and how this changes as the group develops
- The model of work (eg. Traditional CD group work, community social work, Popular Education, etc.), and why this model was used.
- Reference to the evolving process of the group
- The planned outputs and outcomes of the group and why they were selected. Who selected the outputs and outcomes – agency, worker, participants?
- The social capital and networks of the men at the start of the process and how this changed.
- The actual and potential assets that the group could draw upon.
- What happened – what worked, what didn’t work and why?
- What was achieved, what difference did it make for the men and the wider community?
- What was learnt from this work? This includes a discussion that could include; analysis of power, personal and community empowerment, inequality / anti-discriminatory practice, leadership development / community building, etc.
- Literature underpinning the development of this work and the analysis of it.
We are interested in using a diverse range of case studies that include, but are not limited to, the subjects listed below.
- Arts based Community Development
- Working with Women
- Radical Youth Work
- Working with Older People
- Working with the LGBT community
- Environment and Community Development
- Faith Based Community Development
- Ethnic minority communities
- Working with migrant / refugee communities
- Rural work
- Community Based Enterprises
- Working for the Local Authority
- Running a Campaign / Building Coalitions
We would need the case studies to be sent to us by Friday the 9th of November. Due to our publisher’s deadline, we have no flexibility with this date.
If you are interested in writing a case study, or you are just thinking about doing so, please contact us at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with Case Studies in the subject line and we will get back to you.
Dave Beck & Rod Purcell
Download the Full Report Here
Download the Summary Report Here
In 2016 the Endorsement and Quality Standards Board for Community Development Learning (England) commissioned an initial piece of research about Community Development activity in England and the opportunities that exist for developing and supporting people involved in their community. We are publishing our findings here.
Teh context for the research was that in 2010 a Government resourced consultation involving a range of key actors from the community development field published an important report entitled The Community Development Challenge (Together We Can). The consultation set out to discern and envisage the future of community development in the UK. It was noted that Society relies on community development yet the occupation is not well known. Government tends to invest in it unevenly through several funding streams but has no co-ordinated overview. Yet social policies and programmes repeatedly come back to community development as they grapple with the problems of overcoming disadvantage, engaging with residents and making public services work better.
Read more: Current Community Development Practice and Learning