Last week we had the privilege of welcoming Frits De Dreu and Klees Bouwman, teachers from the University of Professional Education in Utrecht (Hogeschool Utrecht), to Liverpool. I love these opportunities for dialogue with international colleagues and it was a huge pleasure to share ideas and a meal with Frits and Kees. Our visitors were particularly interested in the Creative Partnerships programme and the lessons that might be learned from our experience of developing complex partnerships in schools. It would seem that the gap between rhetoric and action is significant in The Netherlands – they are not alone.
It was fascinating to discover how some social workers are trained in universities in The Netherlands to become Cultural and Social and Development Professionals (CMV – Culturelle en Maatschappelijke Vorming). This seems to be a inspired model for developing social and cultural capital through social work – connecting social objectives with cultural objectives in ways that resonate with my own ideas about developing social capital through cultural development, and cultural capital through community capacity building.(See my last post for a description of the principles that underpin this model).
‘The CMV practitioner’s focus is on increasing and strengthening the competencies that enable people to stand on their own feet and shape their life qualitatively. He does this by challenging individuals, groups, organisations and communities to take part in social and cultural activities and projects.’
Alert & Enterprising 2.0 – National CMV Programme Consultation Group 2009
About three thousand students are currently being trained in CMV in the Netherlands and the professional competencies they work towards have many similarities with the competency framework we developed for Creative Agents a few years ago.
The Dutch competencies are divided into three categories
A. Social – agogic action – the business of teaching, doing, leading, facilitating
1.Exploration, research analysis – understanding the social context where the work will take place.
2. Making contact and giving leadership – recognising the leaders and key partners in the social context.
3. Design and development – of suitable programmes that ‘give form to social life’.
4. Organisation, networking, mediation ‘so that participants are enabled to attain the goal they set for themselves’
B. Entrepreneurial action
5. Entrepreneurial and organization-oriented action – ‘contributing to the business like aspects of the organisation’
6. Entrepreneurial and strategic action – seeing the connections between the work and that of others and formulating long term perspectives.
C. Professional Development
7. Development of own professionalism – reflective practice and learning
8. Development of professional practice and professional action – contributing to the development of professional practice
9. Presentation of a professional profile, legitimisation and acquisition of public support – gaining public support for the profession
I’m just beginning to get a sense of how this works in action and it’s fascinating to contemplate how complex social problems are being tackled through a project based approach – working with communities to develop their capacity to find their own solutions collectively.
A particularly interesting aspect of the competencies is the focus on entrepreneurship. I think it’s fair to say that here in Britain, entrepreneurship would not feature highly in social work training. It’s an interesting idea that merits consideration. I’ll keep you posted on partnership arrangements that develop. In the meantime if you are interested in how culture builds social capital, please get in touch
Thanks for your inspirational ideas Frits and Kees!
Over the years I have encountered a number of excellent CMV students from the Netherlands through their placements at Action Factory (even lived with two for several months). Most seemed to have a really clear understanding of the role of creative, sporting and social engagement in building cohesive and active communities and taught me a thing or two about activity planning, communication styles, group dynamics etc and they certainly contributed a great deal to the organisation.
Sadly, the divide between rhetoric and action seems to result in a lack of employment opportunities for these skilled and enthusiastic practitioners. I know one former student returned to work as a youth worker in Preston after failing to find work in the Netherlands and of the two other students I am still in touch with, one is working in a kiosk shop on a railway station and the other finding bits and pieces of volunteering and freelance work.
They were amazed when they came to the UK by the level of community arts activity and the opportunities available. They were also amazed to find out that a social worker in the UK is very, very different to a social worker in the Netherlands.