Ten for 10: Wrapping up and going forward
/In our final piece, David Allan wraps up our Ten for 10 campaign, marking 10 years of SCDC as an independent organisation.
Welcome to this final Ten for 10 article as we conclude our celebration of 10 years as an independent charity in Scotland.
As we’ve been writing each piece across the team it’s become clear just how much community development - and Scotland - has changed in the last decade. Reading each article (which you can do here) it’s clear there’s huge opportunities for communities, of place and identity, to make more decisions and take action on the issues important of them.
We’ve learned about Local Place Plans and their potential to have community-led decision making as part of the planning system, or how community empowerment could develop to support more co-produced public services.
We’ve seen how The National Standards for Community Engagement have contributed to better practice across the country and how co-production has helped to change the conversation about how public services are run.
We’ve also been exploring the impact that’s been made at a personal level: it’s inspiring to see how HIIC has helped change people’s lives and how participatory budgeting has given people a vote about how money is spent on the issues important to them.
Finally, we’ve seen how community-led activity makes a real difference: whether that’s through community-led action research or community-led health - both using the skills and capacities of people to make a difference where it’s needed.
Going forward
Of course, there’s challenges too - we need to make sure communities have their say, but also have the time, place and capacity to do so meaningfully. Crucially, we need to ensure we’re not making inequalities worse by just amplifying the loudest voices.
So, thank you for reading. As we wrap up Ten for 10 we hope that you’ve found these articles interesting and that they’ve stirred some thought, and debate, as part of your work.
As we look ahead, we’ll carry on capturing and sharing the learning we see from communities across Scotland, and continue our work supporting best practice in community development.
