greater participant confidence for their role – volunteer and paid roles – including for experienced community development practitioners; enhanced knowledge and understanding of community development and related concepts; enhanced knowledge and understanding of the social determinants of health and of how this guides effective prioritisation of actions and resources; enhanced awareness of the context for the participant’s work or practice; affirmation of existing good practice; improved access to relevant evidence; improved understanding of the importance of measurement and demonstration of impact; enhanced personal and professional effectiveness particularly as a result of improved analytical skills supported by the reflective practice dimension of the Pathways to Health approach; benefits to participants’ organisations in terms of direct contribution to the achievement of organisational priorities as learning is applied in practice; expansion of personal and professional networks including opening up of access to policy and decision makers that participants would not normally have easy access to; new working relationships and examples of new work in partnership and joint projects; and increased motivation to use a community development approach to health. In forecasting the cascade effects of the Pathways to Health training, CDHN had originally estimated that each participant would have some level of positive impact on a further 9 or 10 people. In fact, the majority of the individuals profiled above have a sphere of influence which is considerably greater with the work of most impacting upon hundreds, as opposed to tens, of other individuals each year. This fact, coupled with the illustrations of how individual participants have indeed ‘put their learning to work’ indicates that Pathways to Health is having an impact beyond the initial training experience of the participants.
Participants at all Pathways levels, and particularly at Level 3, have been enabled to have new or increased access to key influencers and decision makers, from MLAs and other elected representatives to senior officials in statutory organisations, who are concerned with policy decisions and the investment of public funds. There are indications that there have been positive effects in two directions. The contact and interaction has aided participant understanding of the realities around policy and decision making processes while the elected representatives and officials have had the opportunity to engage with Pathways to Health participants in the context of their learning experience on the programme, and better understand their perspectives. Pathways to Health has provided a platform for discussion on core issues and contributors and guests have been encouraged to understand participants’ experiences and vice versa. 8.1.9 Growth of a learning community With Pathways to Health, CDHN has been further growing and consolidating its learning community in relation to community development and health. New connections have been forged that further enhance and extend the networking platform that CDHN represents and this has been underpinned by the learning which has been facilitated through the Pathways to Health programme. There is scope to support this activity further, especially for a membership organisation and while CDHN is already taking steps to explore new mechanisms, prioritising this activity forms one of the key evaluation recommendations below. 8.1.10 Sustainability of the Pathways to Health approach CDHN is seizing the challenge of protecting the role in capacity building and learning that Pathways to Health has enabled the organisation to further expand. As Pathways has progressed, new programme have been developed in response to observed and emerging needs and demands. These new offers have been in the areas of supporting community health champions, group work skills, and and co-design. are very significant known and latent needs in relation to each of these areas across the workforce and volunteer base active in community development and health. As Pathways to Health has demonstrated, these needs exist within community and voluntary sector organisations and statutory organisations, whether these organisations are explicitly concerned with health or with one or other of the recognised health determinants. As CDHN staff skills and confidence have developed over the Pathways to Health project lifetime, so too has their capacity to offer out a wider service in terms of facilitation, training design and delivery and other related consultancy work.