Resources
This section of the website offers free information about ways of empowering people and helping them choose change. Please click on one of the sections below:
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The information sheets in this section cover some key concepts, tools and techniques related to personal empowerment:
This is the full version of an article by Roger Saunders, featured in Regeneration and Renewal in April 2007
This resource pack, written by Choosing Change, is for communities who want to start making economic change in their own neighbourhoods. It describes how to tackle problems like worklessness and debt through a wide range of community-based initiatives.
Recommended websites on social and community empowerment, with useful resources:
www.traffordhall.com - Trafford Hall, near Chester, is the home of the National Communities Resource. It offers a wide range of training courses and events for community-based organisations, including many courses by Choosing Change.
www.thescarmantrust.org - The Scarman Trust, a national charity committed to enabling citizens bring about change in their community.
www.neweconomics.org - The New Economics Foundation, an independent think-and-do tank committed to developing genuine economic and social well-being.
www.instepservices.co.uk – InSTEP (Information Services for Tenant Empowerment & Participation) runs a national programme of training courses open to all social housing tenants, professionals and community workers. The programme is subsidised by Tenant Empowerment Grant funding.
www.youngfoundation.org.uk - A centre for social innovation, based in East London – currently leading a Local Well-Being Project to test ways of improving public wellbeing in three UK local authorities.
Recommended websites on personal empowerment:
www.cappeu.org - The Centre for Applied Positive Psychology, based at the University of Warwick.
www.centreforconfidence.co.uk - The Centre for Confidence and Well-Being, based in Glasgow, Scotland.
www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu - The best US website for positive psychology, based at the University of Pennsylvania.
www.mindfields.org.uk - The Mindfields College offers a wide range of training on effective, practical approaches to counselling and psychotherapy.
Whats On
Choosing Change currently offers 4 types of training:
In-house courses for community groups are courses that can be booked by your organisation, and we will come to you and run the course locally.
In-house courses for staff and managers are courses about communication and empowerment, designed to help staff give of their best and get the best from their organisations. Again, we come to you.
Open courses at Trafford Hall are courses we run at the National Communities Resource Centre in Chester.
Open courses for InSTEP
are courses we run at various venues around the country