Have you seen SSP’s 2010 publication: Breaking out of the Welfare Trap? If not, you should check it out. It’s available for download here and on our Scrapbook page.

FYI—Every year SSP puts out multiple publications of use to the nonprofit sector and people living and working in our area, and they always stick them up on their website. Visit SSP’s Reports page to see what’s new that could be of use to YOU!

SCTN has published an evaluation of our services from 2007 to 2010. The evaluation was conducted by Sarah Murphy and is available for your perusal right here!

Southside Partnership DLR just released A Guide to Policies and Procedures for Community Organisations.

This guide is a fantastic resource for groups or individuals who have just set up a not-for-profit organisation or are thinking about doing so. It contains crucial information on:

• Company structure, charitable status and financial management
• The Board of Directors and governance
  Mission statements, the Code of Ethics and equality and diversity policies
• Health and safety
• Recordkeeping, recording and personnel files
• Contracts of employment and HR forms
• Policy and procedure development
• Specific policies and procedures

As well as appendices with a helpful reminder checklist, a summary of legislation and guildlines and useful contacts.

And because they are so nice, SSP let us offer it for download right here!

PLUS, PLUS, in the hardcopy version of this guide SSP included a CD of policy templates to give the new company a head start in developing all their crucial company documents, and they've given them to us in PDF for you to download here!

The Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Childcare Committee (DLR CCC) has published a report Childcare Needs of the Traveller Community in Dún Laoghaire Rathdown.

The report looked at the current levels of participation in the county’s childcare services by children in the Travelling Community, and identified Traveller childcare needs, including any current or previous barriers Travellers have experienced in accessing childcare. It's available for download on the DLR CCC website and right here too!

The report Conversations on Power is now available for download in pdf.

It contains material from the two women's conferences SCTN held in 2008 and 2009, together with twelve fact sheets of interesting statistics on women today in areas like employment, caring, domestic violence and alcohol use, among others. Click on the report cover to download.

What our participants have to say about Southside Community Training Network:

I have had a very good experience when dealing with the training network. All the courses I have attended, or that my staff have attended have been very professionally run, well organised and executed. They have helped my staff and I to become more professional and have helped us when working in our service. The fact that the training is within the local community is also very helpful. I have met many different people at various courses and have at times been able to get help from them and know that I could ask any of them for help at any time. It is nice to get to know other people who are also working for the good of our communities. Brenda Richardson, Oatlands

I have found Southside Community Training Network a great help to our playgroup, as it offers invaluable training on a continuous basis. I have attended courses on committe skills, accessing funding, writing a constitution. This training as helped me in the management area of the playgroup. Networking has also been a big part of the training, meeting faces from the child care sector and discussing problems and issues, but also meeting people from other community groups and listening and learning from their ideas. Unfortunately, this year I have not been able to attend many meeting or training, as we have had some staffing diffucilites but hopefully I will be attending more as this problem has been solved. I would like to say a big thanks to Sandra who is always there to answer questions and to send on lots of helpful information regarding training and grant opportunities. Without the network we would not have access to this information. Cnce again thanks and well done with many more years of helping the community. Sarah Byrne, Ladybirds Childcare Group

My experience is that the Training Network has provided a huge new asset to the development of people working in the community and voluntary sector, and has generated a level of capacity building which was unimaginable before the arrival of the Training Network. It provides good quality, affordable and wide ranging training courses in local accessible venues, and this has never been available before. The number of people attending means that it is also a great way to develop interagency working.
A great job, invaluable. Ruth, Manager of DROP