Final thoughts...
From this website we hope that you will have had a taster of Norfolk Unites and what it could do for you. It is not about doing everything itself, but looking to where that suitable expertise and experience is and signposting people to that.
It is about not continually searching round for the same information on a reactive basis, but having that all in one place, easily accessible to all. The Freud Report (2006) called for a mixed economy of delivery to support employment and skills programmes, whereby the Third Sector works alongside the private and statutory sectors. There is great emphasis on all sectors to ensure that they are working effectively in partnership to ensure suitable delivery to target groups. This would need the Third Sector to present itself as a viable, coherent provision to cross sector parties and it is to this type of need to which Norfolk Unites is responding and which is being advocated on a regional basis through Learn East.
This is reflected in the Norfolk Unites Directory, where we pool together all the services available to the service users of the Norfolk Third Sector. If we hear of a contract for delivering skills for life, we can at the click of a button identify all those providers in Norfolk, or a specific area of Norfolk, if that is required. If someone, from whatever sector, holds a contract, we can get those details out to our members and potential specific providers or referral partners can be identified from the details members have registered with us.
In all of the above, the beneficiary is at the core. How can we, through Norfolk Unites, ensure the best possible opportunities are reaching the service users that the Third Sector works with? The information and opportunities out there can sometimes get lost in the fog, which can mean there is a low take up of opportunities or support that are actually out there. Shining a light through that fog, and bringing clarity and understanding to the ever changing climate of learning and skills, Norfolk Unites enables individual organisations to best map out the path for them and their service users.
More localised, grassroots partnership opportunities will also arise that may well have nothing to do with learning and skills, enabled by bringing all the Norfolk Third Sector providers’ information into one, central resource.
The potential is huge and the future is bright – all it needs is you!
