BTSR guidebook ~ Training & skills self-evaluation
BBC Training and Development: Connect & Create
| Date: | June 2009 |
|---|---|
| Contact: | Glynn Ryland |
| Telephone: | 020 8752 2532 |
Connect & Create is a BBC Training & Development initiative enabling staff to gain new skills by volunteering to work with partner organisations.
The scheme looks to address the skills agenda through carefully selected community partnerships, allowing staff the opportunity to share their skills and expertise, learn new skills and connect with an ever increasing, diverse and hard-to-reach audience. Connect & Create offers five main volunteering areas - mentoring, production, team challenges, leadership and professional advisory roles - with projects running across the UK.
The evolving pace of change within a digital world with choice in both access and content is increasing. Lifestyles, diversity and demographics across the UK are quickly changing. The audience is at the heart of everything the BBC does and the business value in connecting with that audience cannot be underestimated.
The BBC is constantly innovating to meet these new demands. BBC Training & Development is at the heart of that change, ensuring staff have the skills to meet these ever increasing challenges. Connect & Create offers staff the opportunity to develop knowledge and understanding in unique learning environments, directly accessing and finding out more about our audience.
The national partners we work with to achieve this are:
- Crisis
- Foyer
- The Network
- Tomorrow's People
- WRVS
- National EBP Network
- Action for Children
- The Media Trust Community Channel
- Young Enterprise
- The National Trust
- CCUK
- Great Ormond Street Hospital
Our project partners are:
- 21CC
- Sports Unsung Heroes
- Notting Hill Housing Trust
- Hammersmith & Fulham Volunteering Centre
- School Governors' One-stop Shop
- The Lyric
- Preston Manor
- BBC Blast Radio 1Xtra.
We meet with our partners on a regular basis to design projects that are mutually beneficial. We plan activities and training, recruit trainees, set training objectives and manage the project from concept to completion. We evaluate each project to ensure that staff are bringing relevant skills back into the BBC.
An example of one of our projects is Sex Lies and DVDs with Brook & the Lyric Theatre. BBC staff learnt new skills in production, camera work, mentoring and leadership, working with 20 teenagers and Brook to produce a film highlighting the issue of sexual health for young people. The project linked to the musical ‘Spring Awakening’ which deals with the same issues, with the educational film drama shown to young people and adults attending the performance at the Lyric. The film has also been distributed to local schools, colleges and community groups in West London, and shown on the Community Channel, allowing its message to benefit a wide section of the community.
Connect & Create has provided skills development for more than 1,500 BBC staff and has connected with more than 3,000 individuals from different communities across the UK.
