Currently, IVAR carries out five activities which fall under the broad heading of ‘capacity building’:
IVAR’s approach to training and skills development programmes has four
distinctive features:
Evidence based
Content and materials are adapted for practical use from the knowledge generated
through our ongoing action researchin areas of direct relevance to third sector
practitioners. Furthermore, the findings from these programmes themselves
are fed back into our research work, as well as being used to inform the future
delivery of capacity building work.
Collaborative
All of our work is developed and delivered collaboratively. The mutual benefits
of this approach include: local knowledge (of participants and their external
environments) which ensures that content is relevant and grounded; potential
for embedding learning and change in local support networks.
Non-prescriptive
Our earlier work in this area has confirmed that the diversity and complexity
of individual organisations and their local communities does not lend itself
to uniform solutions. Support interventions need to be rooted in participants’
own particular contexts; adaptable, in-depth, long-term and localised support
is more likely to achieve effective and lasting change.
Public policy
Finally, all of our work is explicitly located, and continually related back
to, the wider UK public policy context for third sector organisations.