Celebrating Accreditation Success

9 Dec 2013 Sandra Bailie    Last updated: 13 Nov 2014

NICVA’s Skills Development Unit held its biannual Presentation of Certificates Ceremony on Thursday, 28 November to recognise the achievement of participants on its accredited courses.

These courses ranged from Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management to BTEC Edexcel Level 3 Award in Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector (PTLLS). Thirty-four participants attended this event in NICVA from a wide range of organisations some of which were funded by The Big Lottery Fund under the Reaching Communities NI and Reaching Out Connecting Older People programmes and others that were participants on the NICVA training calendar.

Roisin Kelly, Skills Development Coordinator, started off by congratulating everyone on their achievements and giving an overview of the accredited training programmes that NICVA offers including Leadership and Management and Training qualifications at Level 3 and Level 5. She emphasised NICVA’s focus on practical training to improve the effectiveness of organisations and said “I am delighted that so many people have received certificates that are testament to their hard work and effort over the last year.  You should be very proud of yourselves as am I.”

Sandra Bailie, Head of Organisational Development, recognised the hard work that had gone into the assignments while continuing to work and juggle other commitments. She urged them to see this as the start of their learning journey and to continue their professional development addressing new learning gaps that had been identified. She highlighted that you can learn in a variety of ways, not only through formal courses, such as meetings, conferences, online research and peer learning. She challenged the audience “Set yourself objectives for development and then chart your progress towards achieving them. It's about where you want to be, and how you plan to get there. Link learning to action, and theory to practice.”

Peter Hamill, Skills Development Officer, gave an overview of the programmes that had been delivered by NICVA in the past six months and highlighted a few examples of how participants had applied their learning to bring change in their workplace practices. He mentioned one learner in particular who gained a lot of confidence during the Level 3 Leadership and management programme and has now taken on an apprenticeship.

Emma McCaffrey, ILM Business Manager added her congratulations on behalf of ILM and referred to the recent ILM research report Looking Beyond the Bonus.

She commented on how managers can achieve success through their teams to meet the goals of the organisation but in order to achieve this, team members need to feel motivated to perform at their peak. She reported that the ILM report found that people’s enjoyment of their role was the single most effective motivator, with 59% rating it as one of their top three motivators. Other emotional factors such as getting on with their colleagues, how well they are treated by their managers, and how much control they have over their work also rated highly. She encouraged the audience to continue to pursue learning opportunities and said “Our role as managers and leaders is constantly changing.  Even if your organisation is not going through a change process, new staff, legislation, technology etc. mean that none of us can rest on our laurels.  We must all constantly look at our own performance before we look at others performance and then we need to ensure that we are the manager who always inspires others to give 100 per cent.”

sandra.bailie@nicva.org's picture
by Sandra Bailie

Head of Organisational Development

[email protected]

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