Celebrating the impact of ABCD Guides in England
Over the last few months, we have trained over 45 ABCD Guides in Leeds, Bristol and Kirklees. This blog will share our thoughts on the role of the ABCD Guide and celebrate the success of these newly trained guides.
As our Senior Associate, Tom Dewar would say “There is no map, only a compass.”
An ABCD Guide is a practitioner who possesses a sound understanding of Asset Based Community Development in both theory and practice, demonstrates a passion for citizen-led change and has completed Nurture Development’s 5-day immersion training. Trained ABCD Guides offer clear direction to those at the beginning of an ABCD journey; they nurture local community building efforts through the delivery of ABCD training and by offering peer to peer support.
Cormac with the team of ABCD Guides in Leeds
Our hope is that as ABCD practice deepens local ABCD Guides become a go to point for others in their local area that would like to have a genuine conversation about the dilemmas of living and practising in an ABCD way.
Our ambition is that there will be ABCD Guides in every city/region throughout the UK over the next three years and that eventually there will be ABCD Guides throughout Europe.
“We want more citizen-led action to be happening across Bristol” Terry Black, ABCD Guide Bristol
As well as hosting conversations about ABCD practice in environments that tend to be more culturally oriented towards deficit approaches, ABCD Guides will also seek to organise local ABCD networks to support the deepening and precipitation of practice and citizen-led action where they live and serve.
Cormac with ABCD Guides in Bristol
Since the completion of the initial ABCD Guide training in Leeds and Bristol we’ve been inspired by the way local guides are supporting the proliferation of citizen-led change. In both Leeds and Bristol, practitioners host a group to reflect on and deepen their practice. In both cities, guides have hosted a number of locally rooted Introduction to ABCD workshops which are having a clear impact at neighbourhood level; growing a local legacy of citizen-led change.
“I think it’s also really important that as guides that we continue to practice ABCD in our own neighbourhoods (even on a small scale) so that we can talk about it in an authentic way” Emma Carter, ABCD Guide Leeds
If you’re ready to host ABCD Guide Training in your city/region please get in touch. We are particularly interested in hearing from potential hosts in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, and Edinburgh who would like to host a five day ABCD Guide training programme.
Details on our ABCD Guide offer can be found here
Please contact us for a conversation at: shaun@nurturedevelopment.org