Tackling inner-city engagement

Margerison-McCann Team Management Profile
Tackling inner-city engagement
Chapeltown Youth Development Centre (CYDC) was
set up in 2002 by Chairman, and ex-professional
footballer, Lutel James. Founded and run by
volunteers, the organisation aims to stimulate
interest in sport to engage young people in an inner
city area of Leeds, UK.
The challenge
Originally sport-focused, the organisation has now
developed across a whole host of wider training
opportunities and provides for adults as well as young
people.
When he retired from West Yorkshire Police, Gerry
Broadbent, coaching consultant and a Director of
Community Pathfinders, saw an opportunity to put
something back into the city.
Over the past few months, he has introduced the Team
Management Profile to two project-based groups of
volunteers within CYDC.
Gerry explains, “Sport is a great way to get people
involved. The Centre attracts a significant number of
youngsters, and it’s brought in people from other
communities and cultures. However, these programmes
are a conscious move to widen the remit. They deliver
what the area needs rather than what those funding it
think is needed. It’s all about the community themselves
– and this is where the Team Management Profile comes
into its own.”
The solution
“There’s a real determination by the organisation to invest
in their volunteers, with coaching and mentoring. If you
get the volunteers trained up with the right skills, they
will clearly be able to provide a better service to the client
group. It makes sense that if you’re engaged as a youth
worker, you need to understand yourself before you can
help others”, explains Gerry.
Free2Bme
In a move away from the male-oriented focus of the
Centre, this programme is exclusively for girls and young
women. The all female volunteers offer support and
guidance to help participants make better life choices.
“TMS has given our coaching a real kickstart. Over a
number of months, we‘ve been sharing individual Team
Management Profiles with these project workers. They’re
getting a clear understanding of themselves as
individuals, and then go on to apply that to teamwork so
they work more effectively together. By using the Profile,
we can better equip and empower our volunteers to help
the community.
Uhuru
Offers support and guidance for young people
marginalised by society with four voluntary staff offering
skills training and employment opportunities.
“The organisation has really bought into this and is now
using the Margerison-McCann approach as a foundation
for further staff development. It’s a positive, first step to
more formalised training.”
© TMS Development International Ltd, 2012
“you need to understand yourself before
you can help others”
But Gerry admits, using the Profiles with volunteers is
very different to coaching in a private sector organisation,
not least because they have different amounts of time to
give, so it can be a longer process.
“Both groups we’ve profiled have had different
challenges. They have their own reasons for volunteering,
and their own expectations. The Team Management
Profile is helping them to tackle this. The focus on work
preferences gives people an objective approach to
understanding how and why they work differently to
each other.”
The results
“Working with volunteers has been a real eye-opener for
me. They can be absolutely brilliant at what they do, but
may never have had a chance in life. Now they’ve put all
that behind them and want to give something back to
the community. Powerful stuff.”
The Centre plans to use the Team Management Profile as
the platform for staff to review and set their own
qualitative objectives, based on feedback from
co-workers, so they can take a more focused approach to
how they work. “It’s been absolutely spot on,” Gerry
comments, “they like it so much that the Profile will form
the basis for all their future programmes.”
“At CYDC, we’ve been in the process of reviewing where
we’re going as an organisation, and how we can get
there, despite funding cuts and other external
challenges” adds the Centre’s Chairman, Lutel James. “We
are now clear about the longer-term direction we want to
take and are looking to take the lead on our funding
objectives so we can have a wider and more far reaching
positive impact on our communities.”
“If we skill ourselves up, using tools like the Team
Management Profile, we’ll be able to determine our own
direction. Our organisation will have the skills, abilities
and confidence to take us to where we want to be.”
“All of the volunteers I’ve worked with have really taken
their Profiles on board. They’ve accepted the results and
have been extremely enthusiastic. It’s been a positive –
and credible – tick in the box. Now we’ve got the first
step right, and we know it works, we can move on to the
next stage.”
Further information:
www.gerrybroadbent.com
www.cfydc.com
www.tmsdi.com
© TMS Development International Ltd, 2012