An end of year message from Tim Fishlock, Head of Professional & Community Development
I’ve been in post as Head of Professional and Community Development at PraxisAuril for nearly 6 months now. In that time, I’ve seen first-hand the energy and enthusiasm our fantastic volunteers bring to a broad range of activities including policy, conference programme development and training.
The end of the year brings time to reflect on everything we’ve achieved in 2021 and how grateful we are for the continued support, input, and community mindedness of all our volunteers. Thank you!
The past couple of years have been incredibly difficult for us all. The global pandemic asked questions of our volunteers that nobody could have anticipated. Our training programme for example, developed over the past 20 years was based almost exclusively on face-to-face delivery at residential courses. This of course all stopped pretty much overnight. We were faced therefore with a clear and immediate need to pivot format completely and transition our training courses to online delivery. This was no small undertaking, ensuring the courses continued to meet key learning objectives and the needs of the delegates whilst maintaining high levels of interactivity and engagement. New learning methods and online tools were needed, and new online friendly content created. But of course, our fantastic Course Directors and Trainers stepped up and through their hard work and commitment we have been able to offer a near complete programme of training over the past couple of years, all delivered over Zoom.
So again, I would like to take the opportunity to recognise and say a massive “thank you” to all those volunteer Course Directors and Trainers who worked so hard in the early days of the pandemic to ensure we could continue to offer Professional Development training for the benefit of the entire KE community.
It’s become abundantly clear that online delivery of this type of training offers significant benefits in terms of accessibility and inclusivity for delegates and trainers alike. We are therefore looking at ways in which post-pandemic we can continue to offer training both face-to-face and online. 2022 will also see the introduction of a number of new delivery formats including round tables, online learning communities, short courses and webinars.
The opportunities to volunteer with PraxisAuril are numerous and varied and I would be delighted to discuss with anyone who may be interested in getting involved.
Tim Fishlock
Head of Professional & Community Development
tim.fishlock@praxisauril.org.uk