Consultancy

Consultancy

Supporting your organisation

How can you support employees to hold difficult conversations around ‘hot’ issues which find common ground rather than divide? And how do you build a strategy and develop training to develop allyship, awareness of ‘othering’ and how to build inclusion? If work to build social cohesion is already underway, how do you measure its effectiveness and identify best practice?

Belong Network’s consultancy services build and improve skills, enhance knowledge and capacity and are suitable for a whole range of organisations and contexts. We have extensive experience of helping public, private and voluntary organisations:

  • building social understanding by acting as a critical friend,
  • designing and delivering consultation workshops, producing cohesion strategies,
  • techniques for effective dialogue and community mediation,
  • Development of impact frameworks,
  • Evaluating project and programme impact,
  • Research using qualitative and quantitative research techniques,
  • Advice on adoption of a place-based theory of change and development of a volunteer strategy

Belong Network’s evaluators worked with our team in productive ways to ensure that all the lessons that could be learnt from the Bradford for Everyone programme were incorporated into all of our individual project evaluations and final report. In many ways it was a co-production, where the benefits of Belong’s outside research perspectives on our work including their expertise on the subject were brought together with our practical experience of implementing and evaluating the programme as it progressed. With 23 core projects, two campaigns and 60 smaller projects, the evaluation did justice to the complexity of the approach adopted and captured both heart, depth and clear recommendations for policy makers, politicians and other local authorities, and will be utilised as a foundation for our continued work in this area providing direct and wider benefits to the Bradford District.

Zahra Niazi Strategic Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead, Bradford Council

Related Pages

Our Consultants

Discover our bespoke consultancy and training solutions, crafted by seasoned associates with deep expertise in driving diversity and inclusion programs, facilitating community mediation, and enhancing social cohesion.

Consultancy Case Studies

Find out how Belong has worked with our members to develop and support their social cohesion work.