Invitation: Empowering our Communities: a pop-up day of advice, inspiration and connection

Scotland now has ‘Community Empowerment' legislation, growing co-production and participatory budgeting (or ‘community choices') movements, and communities who are have shown the difference that community ownership of assets can make for making local places better.

• Mon, 26th June, 9.30am Registration (10am start) - 4pm
• Venue: The Principal, 19-21 George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2PB (including lunch)
• Register your place here.

However, many of us who are working hard to change things locally can feel cut off from sources of support and connections that could help.

 This is an invitation to a day of advice, inspiration and connection for people who have practical advice to offer, people who are starting off and eager to connect to support - and anyone in between. 

The day will be hosted by the Ingage team in Scottish Government in partnership with national community support organisations.

What's The Purpose?

The purpose of this event is to offer people

• practical advice from others who have been there before;
• connections to support networks and related opportunities you might not have heard about/seen and
• space for powerful conversations about where next with ‘empowerment' and ‘co-production'.

How Will It Work?

This is a ‘pop-up' event offering a diverse range of workshops and conversations through the day.

It is being co-hosted by the Ingage Team in Scottish Government and colleagues from diverse networks supporting empowerment work.

Who's It For?

This is the right event for you if

• You could do with a shot of inspiration, practical advice or are just curious about what else is out there and coming up in 2017/18 
• You've got the bit between your teeth about changing culture in public service and are curious about how this connects to the community empowerment agenda
• You feel you have something to share about what works or what could happen next in Scotland around these themes (power, collaboration, empowerment, co-production).

About the Ingage team in Scottish Government - host of this event in partnership with community support organisations

The relationship between citizen and state in Scotland is changing; Ingage is helping people in public service to change with it.

The First Minister has set out a clear ambition to reform public services and to empower people and communities, recognising the need to make government ‘more open and accessible to Scotland's people than ever before'. We are at a crucial point in that transformation of Scotland's public services.

The Ingage Team was formed, based in Scottish Government, to support us to meet these aims. The team is small, but is working within Scottish Government and across Scotland, with public services and communities, to enable, support and grow our capability and capacity to transform. We bring together colleagues with a range of experiences of working with and in different public services and settings. Our work is based on the core principles of openness, creativity and collaboration to embed ways of working that enable people to participate in the decisions that affect their lives.

There's more information and registration here.