We are pleased to confirm that IACD has agreed to work in partnership with the Standards Council for Community Learning and Development based in Scotland, to take forward our project to produce a set on international occupational standards for community development and an international Code of Ethics. This initiative builds upon the work we did last year in producing IACD’s first global definition for community development – that it is a practice based profession and academic discipline.
As we announced to members earlier this year, we are commencing a year of consultation on the production of these Standards and the Code. (Please see the Policy and Advocacy page on the website to see the earlier announcement we made on this new IACD Policy Position). We started the consultation with two well attended workshops at the February 2017 conference in Auckland, one with community development practitioners and scholars and the other with community development graduate students in the Social Practice Department at UNITEC polytechnic.
The Standards Council for Community Learning and Development for Scotland http://(http://cldstandardscouncil.org.uk/) is the body responsible for the registration of CLD practitioners, the approval of training courses, and the continuing professional development of the sector workforce. The Council has had long experience in this area and is the leading Standards agency in Europe for community learning and community development course endorsement.
We are delighted to be working again with the Standards Council on this project, building upon our earlier partnership with them in organising the 2014 international CD conference in Glasgow. Indeed IACD’s close links with the Council go back to the partnership established in 1998 when we moved the IACD Secretariat and HQ to Scotland, and based it at the Council’s predecessor body the Scottish Community Education Council (which had been approving courses since the 1980s)
The next stage of this joint project, will be the production of a draft consultation paper, to be written by staff at the Standards Council. This will draw together knowledge and experience from around the world in developing national occupational standards, practice competence frameworks and codes of ethics. And it is from this work that we plan to distill a set of international Standards and an international Code of Ethics. Following publication of the draft report, hopefully by October 2017, we aim to run further consultations with members, leading to a final event and approval of the Standards and Code in 2018.
