Up and coming events from the CLD Standards Council

You can also follow us on Eventbrite for advanced notification of our events.

Member Meet-up: The Community Empowerment Act 10 years on – Community Empowerment and Local Democracy – Wednesday 22 October 2025 14:00-15.30pm

A decade since the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 was passed, this session will provide an overview of the Act’s Findings and Update Report published by the Scottish Government on 31 March 2025. The session will also include an overview and update on Democracy Matters which is designing new and enhanced democratic community level decision making arrangements which will play a pivotal role in the next steps of Scotland’s community empowerment journey.

The session will explore how community empowerment legislation has benefited community learning and development approaches, which parts of the Act have had the most impact, what barriers remain and how Democracy Matters can take Scotland’s community empowerment to the next level.

Join us to share your views, your practice and your thoughts for the future.

EDI Member Forum – 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence – Thursday 30 October 2025 11am-13:00pm

The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international campaign that starts on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until 10 December, Human Rights Day.

Over the last 5 years, The National Violence Against Women Network have developed an annual toolkit of resources for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence across Scotland. The toolkit includes resources such as digital logos for campaign materials, graphics and animations on key statistics, and template resources such as a communications schedule and prompt cards on a chosen theme. This toolkit and collective activity supports the programme of events carried out by local Violence Against Women Partnerships and other organisations/community groups, bringing together people across Scotland to stand against violence against women and girls (VAWG) and call for action.

Hosted by the Improvement Service, this session will focus on how the toolkit is developed and used in Scotland, and will provide examples of local campaigns and ongoing work to prevent and end violence against women and girls.

Member Meet-up – Digital Skills Education – Wednesday 12 November 2025 10am-11.30pm

We’ll be joined by Digital Skills Education for an engaging session designed to show you the training courses and resources available to support your learning and development. Digital Education is a small company working with staff, volunteers and learners, supporting them to upskill in all things digital. The team has previously worked with CLD practitioners (including those in North Lanarkshire, South Ayrshire and Youthlink Scotland); you can read their blog about digital skills and AI awareness work with South Ayrshire Council. You can also find out more about their workplace learning offer, as well as courses for older adults and support for young people and youth workers too (have a look at their Cyber Skills Live games and activities).
From staying safe online, working with data, improving digital wellbeing, and understanding artificial intelligence, the training is designed to be practical, inclusive, and jargon-free, bridging the digital skills gap by making learning digital skills an engaging, fun, and social experience. The team has run courses for staff, volunteers and directly with groups and service users, covering all ages and levels of experience. They are also happy to help groups with applying for funding to cover the training costs.

In this session, you’ll have an introduction to what’s on offer for you and your groups. And then you can try it out yourselves so you can experience the training in action. Come along and see how you and Digital Skills Education might be able to work in partnership to support you and your learners to become more confident and skilled at using technology.

Member Meet-up – Qualifications: Assessing & Verifying in CLD – Thursday 13 November 2025 11am-12.30pm

Join us for this session where we will hear from fellow CLD Standards Council members in Aberdeenshire Council’s CLD team on how they ‘grow their own’ assessors and internal verifiers for delivering SQA qualifications.

During the session, we’ll explore

  • what it means to be an SQA centre, the impact on the Aberdeenshire Teams work
  • how the team train Assessors/Internal Verifiers
  • the process used in Aberdeenshire Council and examples of their standard paperwork
  • the requirements assessors must undertake in order to be fully trained
  • the range of qualifications on offer to learners.

And of course, there will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions and get into the details about “what, why and how”.