Community Development & Health Network: Elevate

Overview

Elevate is a capacity building programme which provides opportunities for the development of skills knowledge and expertise in community development as a way to reduce health inequalities. The programme is funded by Public Health Agency (PHA) and developed and delivered by Community Development and Health Network (CDHN). 

It has five core elements:

• Community Mentoring & Grants Programme: Elevate mentee groups receive ongoing support from a mentor to identify their own needs and actions in relation to improving their community development practice and supports them to develop their project plans and practice. Funding from the grants programme enables groups to take action to address health inequalities. (This is the application form to become a Elevate Mentee group)
• Training: Evidence-based workshops exploring health inequalities and how community development approaches can effectively help to reduce them. The training is free and open to anyone with an interest in health inequalities and community development. As part of the Community Mentoring and Grants Programme, mentees are also offered additional training on group work skills, evaluation and impact, health literacy and finance and monitoring.
• Information Sharing and Networking: Both the Training and Community Mentoring and Grants programme enable those participating to learn, share information and resources and network. The Elevate portal http://www.elevateni.org is an open website sharing evidence-based information, fact sheets, resources, toolkits and training opportunities. It also hosts Elevate Impact stories and reports and the booking form for Elevate training.
• Reflective Practice: Community development is an ongoing process that has reflective practice at its core. All training participants are encouraged to reflect on how the training will benefit them in their role and organisation. CDHN have developed a Reflective Practice Tool (RPT). It is used as part of the Community Mentoring and Grants Programme to enable mentees and their groups to reflect on their work and think about how they can ensure that community development values underpin, inform, and present in their practice.
• Community Development Practitioners Forum: This element is new for 2025-2026. It will bring together practitioners working in similar roles to share good practice. Participants will benefit from hearing evidence-based, best practice guidance from specialists, case-based learning from presentations, and participating in discussions.

Eligibility

Who can apply to the Programme?

• Community groups (constituted and unconstituted)
• Charities
• Voluntary groups
• Social enterprises
• Community Interest Companies (CIC)
• Any of the above organisations based in Northern Ireland

They welcome applications from all community groups, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. Following a review of previously successful Elevate projects, they are particularly interested in applicants from groups that are volunteer led, have less than 5 staff or support people from LGBTQIA+ and Minority Ethnic communities and those living with a physical and/or learning disability.

What type of projects do they support?

• Organisations/community groups in need of mentoring to develop their community development practice, and who can put forward 2-4 people (volunteers or paid staff) to take part in the mentoring process.
• Community groups in a local area or a community of interest aiming to deliver a project that seek to address health inequalities by focusing on the social determinants of health
• Projects that use group work
• Projects that involve participants in shaping the project (co-design)
• Projects that focus on the social determinants of health

The 2025-26 Programme

The focus of the Community Mentoring & Grants Programme is mentoring and supporting groups to develop your community development practice to build on your strengths so you can take action on the social, economic and health issues that matter most to your community.

If your community group/organisation is accepted onto the Community Mentoring and Grants programme, you will become an Elevate Mentee for 2025/26 and will benefit from dedicated, ongoing support from the CDHN team and one of our experienced community mentor organisations.

Mentors will work with you identify your community needs, issues and what is important and explore your groups strengths and opportunities for growth in community development practice, with a focus on addressing health inequalities.  Through one-to-one and group mentoring, reflective practice sessions and engaging networking sessions, you’ll build your skills, knowledge and expertise in community development, connect with other mentee groups, share information and ideas and build lasting partnerships.

The CDHN team will also provide support through individual visits, phone calls and invitations to wider events.  All successful groups will receive Elevate training on community development and health inequalities, and you’ll also have access to a range of additional training opportunities—completely free for Elevate mentees—including sessions on evaluation and impact, group work skills, and health literacy. New this year, we’re excited to introduce a Community Development Practitioners Forum, offering even more opportunities for learning, collaboration, and inspiration.

You will receive a grant of up to £5000 to deliver a project aimed at reducing health inequalities in your community (local community or community of interest).  Your project will use a community development approach and focus on the root causes of health inequalities which involve many social factors outside medical care.

Your project must include group work. The social factors that influence health are beyond the ability of any individual to control; group work builds trust and supports relationship building and allows for the inclusion of diverse perspectives that may not emerge in individual conversations.

The project participants must be involved in shaping the project, this will help ensure the project activities are inclusive, relevant, accessible and meet the needs of the community and enable you make to changes or improvements that will help people meaningfully engage with the project.

Your organisation/community group does not need to have community development experience to apply. What really matters is you identifying the need for a project to address health inequalities in your community, and crucially your enthusiasm to learn and actively participate in the programme, so that your group build on your strengths and develop your community development skills, knowledge and experience to improve health outcomes for your community, during and beyond the programme.

What is expected of Elevate Mentee groups?

• Your staff/volunteers must take part in mentoring and training
• Your project must aim to address the health inequalities, focusing on the social factors that influence health
• Your project will demonstrate a community development approach (CDHN and our mentors will support you with this)
• You can receive up to £5000 in funding for your project, or up to £1000 if your group is unconstituted.
• Your project will run between August 2025 to March 2026
• You fulfil the evaluation and monitoring requirements

 To get some ideas about potential projects, you can find out more about previous Elevate Community Mentoring and Grant Projects through their Elevate Mentee Impact stories and videos and our Impact Reports here