Open College Network Northern Ireland · RQF Level 3
OCN NI Level 3 Certificate in Community Development
You don’t just earn this. You learn to use it, one-to-one, on your own real work.
- LevelRQF Level 3
- Total credits21
- Guided learning147 hours
- Units in this qualification10
Awarded by Open College Network Northern Ireland · on the Ofqual register
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See how this course maps onto your role
Ten quick questions, one per Future Fluency, asked against this qualification rather than a generic one.
About 5 minutes · No card · Nothing to commit to
What you’ll learn
What each unit actually teaches you to do
Open Share Previewing Specification OCN NI L1-L2-L3 Suite of Community Development.pdf Specification OCN NI L1-L2-L3 Suite of Community Development.pdf
These are the units Open College Network Northern Ireland registers against this qualification. It is a catalogue, not a syllabus. Which of them you take depends on the combination the qualification requires, and that is set by the awarding body rather than by us. Every unit here is regulated, and every one you earn is yours to keep.
Collaborative and Cross-Sectoral WorkReal unit · Open College Network Northern Ireland
What you'll be able to do
- Identify political structures available to support communities
- Identify civic structures available to support communities
- Explain the roles and responsibilities of public bodies in supporting communities
- Describe the principles of collaborative working
- Explain the benefits of partnership working
Community Leadership and ManagementReal unit · Open College Network Northern Ireland
What you'll be able to do
- Understand different leadership and management theories, styles and models
- Understand the skills required to be an effective leader
- Understand the skills required to be an effective manager
- Apply creative leadership skills to meet own community development needs
- Apply innovative leadership skills to meet own community development needs
Community Learning for Social ChangeReal unit · Open College Network Northern Ireland
What you'll be able to do
- Identify formal community development learning opportunities
- Identify informal community development learning opportunities
- Describe the characteristics of participatory learning methods
- Apply participatory learning methods with a community group
- Evaluate the effectiveness of participatory learning methods used with a community group
Governance and Organisational DevelopmentReal unit · Open College Network Northern Ireland
What you'll be able to do
- Understand appropriate organisational structures for community development
- Understand appropriate legal structures for community development
- Understand what is meant by charitable status for an organisation
- Understand the roles of governing bodies within organisations
Group Work SkillsReal unit · Open College Network Northern Ireland
What you'll be able to do
- Explain the reasons why people become involved in groups or networks
- Identify different group roles
- Analyse the impact of different group roles on group effectiveness
- Explain the dynamics of group behaviour
- Describe the processes for developing group objectives
- Describe the processes for developing group priorities
- Explain issues relating to inclusion within groups
- Explain issues relating to exclusion within groups
Group Work and Collective ActionReal unit · Open College Network Northern Ireland
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the skills required to create an effective group
- Understand issues relating to inclusion within groups
- Understand issues relating to exclusion within groups
- Understand issues relating to engagement within groups
Support Collaborative and Partnership WorkReal unit · Open College Network Northern Ireland
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the value of partnership working within community development
- Understand models of formal partnership arrangements
- Understand models of informal partnership arrangements
- Understand the implications for community groups when involved in partnership arrangements
- Understand the implications for community organisations when involved in partnership arrangements
- Understand the techniques involved in partnership working
- Understand the approaches involved in partnership working
- Recognise what constitutes good decision making processes
- Recognise what constitutes accountability within partnership working
Understand Community Development PracticeReal unit · Open College Network Northern Ireland
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the purpose of community development
- Understand the context of community development
- Know the values of community development practice
- Apply the values of community development practice
- Know the process of community development practice
- Apply the process of community development practice
Understand and Engage with CommunitiesReal unit · Open College Network Northern Ireland
What you'll be able to do
- Describe the range of community development structures
- Describe the diversity of community development structures
- Select appropriate methods to understand individuals within communities
- Select appropriate methods to engage with individuals within communities
- Select appropriate methods to understand diverse communities
- Select appropriate methods to engage with diverse communities
- Gather research information for a community audit
- Gather statistical information for a community audit
- Produce a community audit using research and statistical information
Understanding the Strategic Planning ProcessReal unit · Open College Network Northern Ireland
What you'll be able to do
- Understand the fundamental concepts underpinning strategic planning.
- Understand the key stages involved in the strategic planning process.
- Conduct a strategic audit of a specified organisation, identifying its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
The honest bit
You’ve started things before
Most courses were built for a room full of people who aren’t you. A cohort moves on whether or not your week allowed it, and by the third week the thing you’re behind on becomes the reason you stop opening it.
There’s no cohort here, and no timetable to fall behind. Before anything starts, Zavmo asks when you’re sharpest and how long you can realistically sit down for, then builds the sessions around those answers. A bad fortnight changes your pace. It doesn’t put you behind.
And you only pay once you start learning. Searching and planning are free, and you can cancel any time — so the cost of finding out is an afternoon, not a year.
Your passport
Every credit is a stamp you keep
Level 3 credits are regulated. They don’t vanish when a subscription ends or a website closes. They travel to any employer, and Zavmo keeps the map of what you’ve earned and what’s next.
Each stamp is a real unit registered against this qualification.
Who’d teach you this
The Evidence Evaluator
Assessor
Helps you show what you can actually do, gathering the evidence that proves it as you learn.
Meet all twelve tutorsWhere this connects
Where these credits take you
A qualification is never a dead end here. See the jobs its credits open, the national occupational standards its units map to, and the future skills they quietly build.
- Advise on organisational structures to support community development
- Develop and sustain cross-sectoral collaborative working for health and wellbeing
- Enable groups, communities and organisations to determine and plan how to address their issues and concerns
- Encourage and support public bodies to build effective relationships with communities
- Encourage and support public bodies to build relationships with communities
- Facilitate Community Leadership
- Facilitate community learning for social and political development
- Get to know a community
Where this can lead
Lead Community Strategist
Your journey as a Lead Community Strategist is a launchpad. Whether you want to lead larger teams, become a deep subject matter expert, or pivot into broader customer experience roles, the strategic and leadership skills you'll hone here will set you up for significant long-term success. We're excited to see where you take it.
See the whole journey →Skills it covers
What the job actually needs. These are the standards the units are built against, in the words employers and awarding bodies already use for the work itself.
How you’ll actually learn this
One-to-one, on your own real work
A qualification is usually something done to you: sit the class, sit the exam, hope it sticks. Here it’s the opposite. You learn it one-to-one with a companion, on your own real work, and you keep going until you can use it, not just recall it.
Applied to your work in any of these jobs
This unit provides learners with an understanding of political and civic structures supporting communities and the roles of public bodies. Learners will explore principles of collabourative and partnership working and their benefits for community support.
- Remember
- Understand
- Apply
- Analyse
- Evaluate
- Create
Built for OCN NI Level 3 Certificate in Community Development
10 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by Open College Network Northern Ireland.
- Collaborative and Cross-Sectoral Work
- Community Leadership and Management
- Community Learning for Social Change
- Governance and Organisational Development
- Group Work Skills
- Group Work and Collective Action
and 4 more in the full unit list below.
One to one, not one to many
No two people run this the same way
A course is written once and handed to everyone. This is assembled around you, and keeps changing as it learns you. Five things it reads, and what each one changes.
- Your actual work Every unit is taught against a live piece of your own work, not a worked example from a textbook.
- What you already know The first conversation finds your starting point, so you skip what you can already do and spend the time on what you cannot.
- The conditions you learn under Not a learning-styles quiz. The evidence does not support those. The dimensions the research does back, read once and used to shape the plan.
- How far you got last time It picks up mid-thought. The tutor knows what you said, what you struggled with, and what it asked you to try.
- Which tutor suits the moment Twelve of them, each for a different kind of thinking. The one who walks you through a first idea is not the one who stress-tests it.
See how you learn, free. Eight questions, no sign-up. A directional taster; the diagnostic inside Zavmo goes deeper and keeps adapting.
Why it sticks
Most courses stop at remembering
There’s a well-known ladder of how deeply you learn something, called Bloom’s Taxonomy. Most courses get you up the first two rungs: you remember some facts, you pass a test, you forget it. Real skill lives at the top. Judging, deciding, creating. And this isn’t a generic ladder: every rung has a named Zavmo tutor who walks you up it.
- 6CreateThe Creative Catalyst
- 5EvaluateThe Evidence Evaluator
- 4AnalyseThe Analyst
- 3ApplyThe Coach
- 2UnderstandThe Connector
- 1RememberThe Builder
Where most courses leave you Where Zavmo takes you
The value
Why the companion is worth £70 a month
You’re not paying for the units. They’re regulated, and the same wherever you earn them. You’re paying for the one thing that decides whether you actually get there: a companion that makes them stick, on your real work.
That is one-to-one on this qualification, every day, on the work you already do, for £70 a month. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it. Billed monthly, cancel any time and billing stops.
Earned on your own work, taught to the top.
Everything you just read, learned one-to-one on the job you already do. Your first module is free, so you can see the teaching before you pay for any of it.
Build my plan, freeNo card. See how this qualification maps onto your role and meet the tutors who’d teach it, free. The learning begins when you subscribe. It’s £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.