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CVS Training Courses

The work of charities and community groups is vital to ensure that the most disadvantaged in our communities are not left alone. We do the toughest jobs with often little funding or support. However, we are here to help you.

Our training offers you the chance to get expert advice on a range of topics that will help you to help even more people. As well as using our own training and development team, we sometimes get outside consultants in and all this at no cost to you!

Please suggest other subjects which you would like training on so that we can plan attractive training events in the future for you.

For each course, the deadline will be the Friday before the course is to run, so that we can book lunches (where appropriate) and tea, coffee and biscuits.

Contact Anna Fraser at the CVS to book your place on 01738 567076 or anna.fraser@pkavs.org.uk

Your chance to share this unique resource

Following many requests from CVS asking us how they could access and 'customize' the Community Toolkit for use in their own area, we are now offering this resource as a syndicated content feed. This means that your CVS could choose to have the generic content of the Community Toolkit added to your existing website as your own Toolkit. Depending on the complexity (or simplicity) of your website, you can choose to insert sections of the Toolkit into your own website. You can even add your own local branding and content to tailor the Toolkit to your own local area. If you don't have a website yet - ask us about a special package which includes a CMS site and the Toolkit feed all in one.


We are also talking to CVS Falkirk & District, West Lothian and Dundee - all of whom are at different levels of developing an online resource which will soon include the Community Toolkit.


BUSINESS PLANNING AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The course looks at: why plan?; what is a 'project'?; starting to plan; providing details of your organisation, including what is different about you; SWOT analysis; identifying and analysing the needs to be met; strategy, direction, aims and objectives (SMART); project development and planning, including the structure/stages of a project; finances, and implications for the organisation; promoting the organisation's case; the role of the Project Manager; the processes of project management; allocation of responsibilities (including Gannt and Pert charts) and team management; budgeting; reviewing; risk-management and problem-solving; evaluation at the end of the project.

CHILD PROTECTION

This course examines the legal requirements placed upon organisations by the Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003 and other current legislation, including the Disclosure process, “child care positions”, the duty of reporting and preparing a Child Protection Policy.

DATA PROTECTION

This course explains the requirements placed upon organisations holding information about clients, staff and volunteers by the Data Protection Act 1998 and of the enforcement process. It gives advice on how to hold and use personal data in your organisation.

EMPLOYEES’ RIGHTS AND EMPLOYERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

This course covers all aspects of employment law as they affect voluntary organisations which employ staff. It includes contracts, national minimum wage levels, working time regulations, absence management, disciplinary and grievance procedures, dismissal, discrimination, trade union membership, maternity and paternity leave, adoptive parents’ rights and flexible working.

HOW TO WRITE A CONSTITUTION

This course looks at different forms of legal status and the issue of choosing the most suitable for your organisation; at the importance of a constitution – or its equivalent – to your organisation; at one (or more) model constitution, its contents and why it has those contents in the way that it does; at the decisions to be made by an organisation in writing (or re-writing) a constitution; and at the effect of the constitution on the way in which the organisation makes decisions and carries out its business.

IMPLEMENTING PQASSO

This is currently a two-day course for organisations funded above a certain level by Perth & Kinross Council, although other organisations, with the local authority’s permission, may also attend. The course introduces trainees to the PQASSO quality assurance scheme, which the local authority wants all organisations without such a scheme to implement, and advises on how they might implement it themselves.

TELEPHONE SKILLS

This course trains people in the active, participative nature of listening; explains how, in face-to-face conversations, body language sends us messages which we interpret in forming suitable responses; explains the importance of voice signals picked up from the person on the other end of the line; considers barriers to effective listening and ways of encouraging people to give more information; advises in some detail on how to respond to clients in a supportive and effective way, and enables participants to practise in role-play situations.

TIME MANAGEMENT

This course enables participants to look at their typical working day, to consider the real issues of time management in the workplace, to review and analyse their own use of time, and to begin to plan to improve on their current practice.

(We can also run a course on GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT but do not have a blurb for that!)


CVS Perth & Kinross are offering training in different ways in 2008.

We shall still continue to offer courses of general interest to the voluntary sector, but also offer bespoke training to organisations with specific training needs.

In addition, since trainers Bob Gillespie and Colin Carr have now qualified as PQASSO Mentors (PQASSO stands for Practical Quality Assurance System for Small Organisations), they will be delivering two sets of 2-day Implementing PQASSO training to those organisations receiving 20% or more, or £15,000 or more, of their annual income from / via Perth & Kinross Council (P&KC). P&KC are setting as a funding criterion that organisations with that level of funding from them must implement a quality assurance system, and PQASSO is their chosen system.

Look out for further details of training courses in the next edition of the Bulletin Board, on the PKAVS website (www.pkavs.org.uk) and in e-mails from Bob or Colin. Rates for all-day courses will be £40 per person and for half-day short courses will be £20 per person.

BASIC BOOKKEEPING*

Trainees will gain a broad understanding of the role of a Treasurer in an organisation, including the type of bookkeeping needed.

They will learn: how to maintain income, expenditure and petty cash books; how produce an Income & Expenditure Account; and how to carry out a Bank Reconciliation.

COMMITTEE SKILLS
By the end of the event, participants will be familiar with:
a) the process involved in writing constitutions and standing orders;
b) the responsibilities and powers of a management committee and of office bearers;
c) setting agendas and taking minutes;
d) proper conduct of the following types of meetings – inaugural, committee and general (including Annual General Meetings and Special/Extraordinary General Meetings).
COMMUNICATION & PRESENTATION SKILLS *

This course covers written communication (letters, e-mails, reports, newsletters and applications) and verbal communication (telephone skills, interviewing techniques, radio and TV broadcasts). The training is delivered by a mixture of instruction, advice, practical exercise and participation.

COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE *

This short course advises on how to make a complaint, how to deal with complaints and how to produce a Complaints Procedure within your organisation. It also provides examples of complaints procedures from various sources.

DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION *

This course trains organisations in the duties, within the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and its subsequent amendments, placed upon organisations, companies and public sector bodies in employment matters and in the provision of goods, facilities and services. It also highlights the penalties facing those which do not comply with the Act.

DIVERSITY AND INTERVIEW SKILLS

This course makes use of video clips involving one-to-one interviews and related questions to highlight “rights” and “wrongs” in interviewing techniques, using people often regarded as “different” as the interviewees.

FUNDING:
APPLICATIONS AND REPORTING PROCEDURES

This course will:
• examine the current funding situation in Scotland;
• describe the support available in seeking funding;
• advise on writing letters of application &on completing application forms;
• give practice in completing application forms;
• detail, & advise on the writing of, other documents & reports to send with the application; and
• advise on how to report to funders (interim & ‘end of grant’ reports).

GROUP DYNAMICS: FACILITATION SKILLS

This short course covers issues such as questions, emotions, concerns and fears experienced before joining a group; the fact that ‘normal’ has a very large number of guises; reading individuals’ ‘body language’; different forms of support which can be offered; and advice on good facilitation techniques.

HEALTH & SAFETY AND RISK MANAGEMENT

By the end of the course, participants will have a better understanding of:
1. Health and Safety legislation and other relevant legislation that affects their activities.
2. How this legislation affects organisations and the other reasons for ensuring good health and safety practices.
3. Why and how risk assessment underpins health and safety legislation.
4. How to identify hazards and do simple risk assessments.
5. The more significant risks in their organisations and how to manage them better.
6. Where to find guidance on the control of particular risks; and where to find help and advice.
7. How effective policies and procedures set the foundation for implementation of good practices.
8. What records need to be kept.

HOW OSCR REGULATION AFFECTS CHARITIES

By attending this course, you will learn how the powers given to OSCR by the Charities And Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 will affect your organisations and your roles within those organisations.

HOW TO SOURCE THAT FUNDING
The course covers responsibility for funding, all types of funding (local and national; grants and loans), Service Level Agreements, support available from the CVS and the Local Authority, and the changing nature of funding, delivered via a combination of information, advice and practice.
MANAGEMENT OF MEETINGS

Attending this course, you will learn:

1. to differentiate between types of meeting;
2. the respective roles of office bearers in an organisation;
3. how to organise different types of meeting;
4. how to set the agenda and take minutes;
5. how to chair meetings properly; and
6. when and how to use voting procedures.

MINUTE-TAKING

This course covers the role of the Secretary in an organisation; the importance of minutes; what must be recorded; what may be recorded; minute-taking techniques; and practice in minute-taking, using a ‘mock’ meeting.

PARTNERSHIP WORKING

Attending this course, you will:
1. study the reasons for the new interest in partnership working;
2. consider the difficulties involved and how they can be overcome;
3. hear presentations on some existing partnerships, either active or embryonic;
4. consider how they might become involved in partnership working and with whom;
5. discover how they might form and develop a partnership with (an)other organisation(s); and
6. examine the nature of partnership working.

PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

This course covers the topics of leadership; recruitment and selection; supervision of staff and volunteers; stress management; assertiveness; conflict resolution; involvement and empowerment. It is delivered over two sessions, using a variety of training methods.

POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

Having the correct policies and suitable ways of putting these into practice is essential if an organisation is to comply with legislation, meet funders’ requirements and its own objectives and treat its clients and its staff fairly and consistently. This course advises organisations on what policies it should have in place and considers how those might be best implemented.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The course includes: the definition of a project; why plan?; helping projects to succeed; developing the plan (need for it; stakeholders; SWOT analysis; content; SMART objectives; when and how to start a project; role of the Project Manager; management styles; budgeting; monitoring and evaluating the project; completing and reporting on the project; what next? A combination of instruction, advice, discussion and practical exercise are involved in this course.

PROTECTION OF CHILDREN *

The aim of this course is to raise awareness among voluntary and community organisations of the Disclosure process in Scotland and of the responsibilities placed upon them, and the effects on them, of the Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003.

Contact Anna Fraser at the CVS for further details or to book your place on 01738 567076 or anna.fraser@pkavs.org.uk

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