How we approach our work
We use a combination of group work, personal reflection and skillfully communicated information to make concepts and skills accessible to all participants. We design our own original activities and materials.
We think that training and consultancy should:
- Be creative, imaginative, relevant and stimulating
- Be challenging as well as enjoyable
- Deepen understanding
- Raise confidence and self esteem
- Produce practical outcomes for individuals and organisations
- Strengthen working relationships and shared values
- Generate tools for analysing and coping with issues and situations
- Lead to recognition and accreditation of achievement, experience and skills
When we negotiate and deliver a package we follow a seven-stage process:
- We will hold meetings with you to clarify your needs and agree the type of work we will do and how we will do it.
- We run sample sessions for the people who will be involved to show them what it will be like and help us make final adaptations to the package.
- We deliver the work, monitoring and reviewing progress regularly and reporting back to you.
- We prepare comprehensive reports detailing the content, outcomes, participant’s work and evaluations of each session we deliver.
- We offer support and tutorials for individuals to help them use the outcomes to achieve objectives.
- We assess all the participants who are enrolled on accredited courses and submit them for their awards
- A Synthesis Associate who was not involved in delivering the contract will carry out an evaluation of the short and/or long term impact of the package, identifying achievements and flagging up future needs
Basic principles
We want our work to meet the needs of the people who commission it; the people who take part in it and the people that are meant to benefit from it. So we find appropriate ways of involving everyone who has a stake in what we are doing.
We plan each piece of work carefully with our clients and try to predict and prepare for any problems that might occur. We include those plans in the contracts we make with clients so that there is a clear and specific agreement about what we will do and provide, the methods we will use, what we will need from the client and the expected outcome.
We believe that working with groups of people from different communities of experience, identity and interest makes us better at our job and helps us to devise activities that have more meaning. We know that working properly with groups that include people from diverse communities can make a real and positive difference to their lives.
We ask the groups of people who take part in our work to make an agreement about how they are going to work together and make everyone feel valued and included. We provide special sessions to look at ways of doing that and examples of how to put equality and inclusion into practice.
We make sure that every member of every course, workshop, development or research project that we lead feels respected for who and what they are and encouraged to achieve their potential, so that they can to play an equal part in the work.
We ask the people who take part in the work that we facilitate to make a commitment to it, but we know that there can be many barriers that make it hard for them to keep their promise. So, we ask other participants, clients and stakeholders to be aware of and do what they can to help overcome the barriers.
