Elevate is a capacity building programme which provides opportunities for the development of skills knowledge and expertise in community development as a way to reduce health inequalities. The programme is funded by Public Health Agency (PHA) and developed and delivered by Community Development and Health Network (CDHN).
The Elevate Programme is the implementation of the PHA led 'Expansion of Community Development Approaches' Framework. This Framework was developed by the community development work stream to examine how community development can tackle health inequalities and contribute to the transformation process.
It has five core elememnts:
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Community Mentoring and Grants Programme:
Elevate mentee groups receive ongoing support from a mentor to identify their own needs and actions in relation to improving their community development practice and supports them to develop their project plans and practice. Funding from the grants programme enables groups to take action to address health inequalities. -
Training: Evidence-based workshops exploring health inequalities and how community development approaches can effectively help to reduce them. The training is free and open to anyone with an interest in health inequalities and community development. As part of the Community Mentoring and Grants Programme, mentees are also offered additional training on group work skills, evaluation and impact, health literacy and finance and monitoring.
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Information Sharing and Networking: Both the Training and Community Mentoring and Grants programme enable those participating to learn, share information and resources and network.
The Elevate portal http://www.elevateni.org is an open website sharing evidence-based information, fact sheets, resources, toolkits and training opportunities. It also hosts Elevate Impact stories and reports and the booking form for Elevate training.
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Reflective Practice: Community development is an ongoing process that has reflective practice at its core. All training participants are encouraged to reflect on how the training will benefit them in their role and organisation. CDHN have developed a Reflective Practice Tool (RPT). It is used as part of the Community Mentoring and Grants Programme to enable mentees and their groups to reflect on their work and think about how they can ensure that community development values underpin, inform, and present in their practice.
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Community Development Practitioners Forum: This element is new for 2025-2026. It will bring together practitioners working in similar roles to share good practice. Participants will benefit from hearing evidence-based, best practice guidance from specialists, case-based learning from presentations, and participating in discussions.
Download Elevate Impact reports here . Elevate's External Evaluation Report 2021-2022 can be viewed here.
Meet the CDHN team working on Elevate
For further information on any aspect of the Elevate Programme, please visit Elevate portal, or contact a member of CDHN working on the Elevate team here.