Getting Involved

The Learning, Skills and Employment Network began life as one of the Networks under the overarching Community Network for Manchester, CN4M was a collection of voluntary and community groups organised through networks that exist to find new ways of enabling people to fully participate in Manchester’s economic, cultural and social life. However, CN4M came to an end in July 2011 after 11 years working with and supporting many voluntary and community sector groups.

More information about CN4M

Community Empowerment Networks were established in 2001 in the 88 Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) areas to enable the voluntary and community sector (VCS) to participate in the Local Strategic Partnership, in Manchester this is now known as the Manchester Partnership. CN4M plays a central role in the delivery of neighbourhood renewal, bringing together community and voluntary sector stakeholders and ensuring that there is coherence and direction across all neighbourhood renewal and community engagement activities.

Over previous years the LSEN has been working with all agencies involved in delivering first steps and community development learning in order to capacity build the neighbourhood renewal process and improve levels of employability in the identified target areas.

We work with organisations which deliver neighbourhood and community based learning within the following contexts:

• Employment and enterprise training – enhancing economic development by helping people to re engage in the labour market and once more become real stakeholders in their communities and have disposable income to enhance their lives
• Informal Adult Learning opportunities to enhance social capital and encourage people to use informal learning to strengthen and rebuild their communities
• Cultural learning to enhance community cohesion – encouraging people to interact with each other, build mutual understanding and cultural awareness and move their communities forward collectively in a way that is respectful and beneficial to all

The LSEN is not a provider of learning, skills or employability training itself but actually provides the mechanism by which third sector provider’s active in these fields can contribute to and have a voluntary sector input to strategic planning.

The LSEN has always had a very wide membership and encourages any organisation that is involved in delivering or supporting any of the above forms of community based adult learning, be they from the public, private or third sector to become involved with the Network. The LSEN runs Task Groups in specific policy areas – at present these include the ESOL Task Group, Future Jobs Fund Task Group, Informal Adult Learning Task Group, the Learning Revolution and Manchester 360 Task Group and the Community Learning Champions Task Group – please see the individual Task Groups for further information.

The activities of the LSEN are overseen by an Executive Group composed of elected and co-opted members and meets quarterly to discuss policy and strategic issues.