Are you aware that in addition to its regular services, as featured throughout this website, DCA also has a consultancy arm?

We will undertake research, audits and consultations for you in order to help you discover what your community wants and needs, audits of existing provision, different ways of fulfilling needs including investigation of how it has been done elsewhere and the possible pitfalls. We will only agree to undertake pieces of work when we are confident we have the necessary expertise. Our fees are very reasonable and we may sometimes be able to give you advice as to where you might get funding for the work.

Consultations

DCA will undertake consultations, large and small, to help organisations and communities find out what people want.

DCA undertook a small-scale consultation when it worked on the Walled Garden in Chiswell (Portland). A local community group had obtained a grant towards the creation of a Doorstep Green, in this case a walled garden, once the site of 3 or 4 houses and now used as an overflow storage space for the boatyard next door. DCA drew up a questionnaire, organised the publicity and announced there would be an Open Day in the would-be garden on a Saturday in October. The event was very successful and the analysis of the questionnaires, also undertaken by ourselves, helped the community group understand what kind of a garden local residents would like, what they would like to be able to do in it and what kind of plants they wanted to see. It also reassured funders that the project genuinely had the support of the local community and that the residents had been fully consulted on the project.

A much larger-scale consultation took place at Gillingham a few years ago when North Dorset District Council asked DCA to find out what community facilities and improvements the people of Gillingham would like to see in the town. DCA gathered opinions from a wide cross-section of the community through a people-friendly process at various venues. These included stalls outside the local primary schools at home time, collecting views outside the local supermarket on a Friday evening, going into the Youth Centre and into the Sixth Form at Gillingham School, and talking to the adults employed at the Scope run Garden Centre. A report with recommendations was written and a presentation of the findings given at a public meeting.

Community Buildings

We have long years of expertise in this field and can investigate community views and prepare reports on community buildings. For example, a few years ago we were commissioned by Poole Borough Council to ask local residents what facilities and activities they would like to see in an existing community building on the Bearwood Estate. One of the advantages of using our consultancy service can be seen in the work we did in Poole. Building on the needs we uncovered from this consultation, we subsequently wrote a successful bid to the Community Fund for a part-time community worker on the estate, part of whose remit is to help ensure the community centre becomes the thriving hub of local activity it was originally intended to be.

Parish Plans

We can be used as consultants in two ways to help with Parish Plans. We can be used in the first place for help with the actual consultation process as was done for example in Beaminster. We can also be used to analyse the results of your surveys and questionnaires. This is particularly useful if you are anxious that your Plan should be seen to be independent and unbiased. We have undertaken such analysis for many Parish Plans in Dorset including Litton Cheney, Sutton Poyntz, Charlton Marshall, Leigh, Yetminster & Ryme Intrinseca, Spetisbury and Stalbridge.

Audits

DCA will conduct audits of existing provision so that providers can see where there are gaps in provision. For example we have done an audit of voluntary car schemes throughout the county for the DART partnership and we have done an audit on play provision in West Dorset for West Dorset District Council. We can also offer access auditing for village and community halls.

Other Research

We can undertake other pieces of research too. For example in the relatively early stages of the developments of the Dorset Scooter Schemes we were commissioned to look at how other scooter schemes worked in other areas of the country in order to see what lessons could be learned for its development. This involved visiting other schemes in Tisbury, Gloucester, Tavistock and the New Forest and finding out how they were funded, what training they provided, how they dealt with poor payers and many other issues and seeing what the Dorset scheme could usefully learn from them. We have also done research, including in-depth interviewing, to inform various strategies and other policy documents for local authorities and other agencies.

What to do if you are interested

All our consultancy work is in addition to the work we already do in Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole. For further information, pricing structures, timescales etc. please contact  Rachelle Smith – rachelle.smith@dorsetcommunityaction.org.uk phone 01305 216411