Greater Whitsunday Communities are hosting an Introduction to Participatory Community Development Workshop with guest speaker Dr Peter Westoby. Please join us for this comprehensive workshop where we will cover a range of topics that will build a strong foundation on which to grow your community development skills. Light catering will be provided.

Who should attend:

People who’ve got community development in their job descriptions, but feel they need a clear ‘to do’ or ‘method framework’
Practitioners who’d like to reflect on the quality of their community development practice; and their own quality in the practice
Active and engaged citizens who’d like to add to, and reflect on their intuitive community-oriented practices
Activists, social and ecological practitioners wanting to add a community development approach to their work

About Peter:

Peter originally hails from the UK but now loves living in Maleny/Jinibara Country, Australia. He is currently a senior social practitioner/Director with Community Praxis Co-op, a custodian of the Camellia Centre for Reflective Practice, a part-time community development practitioner at Hummingbird House (a paediatric palliative care hospice), an Honorary Associate Professor at Deakin University, Australia and a Visiting Professor with the Centre for Development Support, University of Free State, South Africa.

Peter’s experience includes over 30 years of development practice work in South Africa, Uganda, Nepal, PNG, the Philippines, Vanuatu, and Australia. He is also the author of 15 books and over 60 professional journal articles. In his spare time Peter also loves drinking good coffee, hanging out in his local bookshops, swimming in water holes, and bush walking.

His core skills and capabilities include:

Facilitating collective conversations (circle work) in community learning, organising and development
Researching - orthodox qualitative, participatory action research (PAR), community-based
Youth, community, and organisation development practice
Cross-cultural conflict transformation – particularly using elective approaches
Supporting the development of cooperative and associational forms of social animation, community leadership and cooperative structures
Reflective social practice, supporting people to inquiry into their own ‘practice’ (not espoused practice, but actual practice)
University teaching, research, supervision, and service

Check this out to listen to Peter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cq1l81NT70