Project outline
Funded by Keele University’s Institute of Social Inclusion, this project ran between July 2024-March 2025, and aimed to find out what knowledge, training or skills are needed in Staffordshire’s voluntary sector to enable faster and more joined-up climate action.
Workshops were held across Staffordshire and online for community and voluntary groups, council officers and residents in autumn 2024. During these workshops, participants were guided through questions to explore their future aims, what might prevent these aims from being met, and what additional training, knowledge or skills are needed to overcome these challenges.
During these workshops, participants were encouraged to share the resources they already use in their work, and these have been collected and put into a resource list:
What next?
The outcomes of the workshops were collated and summarised. While all of the comments were framed around the desire to take climate action in our communities, the majority of the aspirations, challenges and solutions centred around ensuring that the community groups would continue running for the next 10 years, had a strong volunteer team, and could access funding information easily. There was also a strong interest in wanting to engage with local schools for awareness and education, and to engage younger volunteers and students.
Hosting Student Placements: A Guide for Community Group
A webinar was held with the Keele University Placements and Projects team to give an overview of student placement opportunities, and how community groups could host a placement in their organisation. Examples of previous successful placements were given by Support Staffordshire.
Schools and Communities: Working Together
Two sessions were hosted in primary schools who have delivered successful community projects: Horton St Michaels in Rudyard (with Greenwood Growth CIC), and St Mary’s CE First School in Uttoxeter (with Croft on the Heath and BeeWild Bushcraft). These after school events allowed school settings and community groups to come together to discuss the challenges they both face in building successful relationships with each other.
Key take-aways from the sessions:
- Link community group activities into the curriculum where possible – literacy, maths, history, science
- Building a long term and trusted relationship with a school can take time, but is incredibly valuable for both the community group and school.
- Assemblies can be a great way to introduce your community group and meet the staff
- Community groups may have expertise that teaching staff don’t (eg in climate change, biodiversity etc) – what activities or knowledge can you offer a school that they don’t already have?
- All schools are required to have a sustainability lead and Climate Action Plan by September 2025 – can your group help your local school with this? Find out more: Climate Ambassadors
Growing your community group
For more information about the services Support Staffordshire can offer your group, click the links below:
For information on upcoming events, sign up to the Support Staffordshire ebulletin, or join the Staffordshire Green Network facebook group
