Programme

East Belfast Community Development Agency, Emmanuel Church and JRF

A collaborative forum focused on exploring strategic and community-led responses to poverty across Northern Ireland. Facilitated by Ashleigh Roberts, the session will bring together representatives from grassroots organisations, regional advocacy bodies, faith-based initiatives, and individuals with lived experience to examine the scale and impact of poverty and the importance of collective action in addressing it.

Through a combination of keynote contributions, lived experience perspectives, and interactive discussion, the Engagement Hub will highlight the value of partnership working, community empowerment, and coordinated policy and legal advocacy in driving meaningful and sustainable change. The session aims to create a shared space for learning, reflection, and dialogue, encouraging participants to consider how collaborative approaches can strengthen anti-poverty efforts at both local and regional levels.

Young at Art , Save the Children, and Voices for Impact (Bytes)

Children and young people are often invisible in the development, planning and delivery of services that affect their lives. This interactive workshop will encourage organisations to rethink how children’s voices are heard, valued and acted upon, highlighting examples of best practice and the role of creative arts in amplifying those voices.

The session will explore:

• The absence of children’s voices in decisions relating to service provision and policy development;

• Approaches to engaging children and young people safely, ethically and inclusively, ensuring their perspectives are genuinely heard;

• How organisations can listen and respond meaningfully to what children communicate.

The session will conclude with a short Q&A, providing space to reflect on the learning, discuss challenges and opportunities, and explore the wider ambition of these approaches in practice.

174 Trust

In our increasing polarised world how do we enable people from different communities to work together for the common good? Based on peacebuilding and community empowerment models from Northern Ireland and USA, Circles of Change have enabled people from diverse communities to learn about Northern Ireland from each other’s stories and contribute to a better future together, supporting 19 grassroots projects benefiting 18,000 people.  Come along to our interactive, immersive session to experience the power of story, relationship and common causes in empowering people to change the world around them.  

IMPACTAgewell and Healthy Living Centre Alliance

Representatives from IMPACTAgewell and the Healthy Living Centre Alliance will present on their experiences of community development health and wellbeing approaches and then invite the audience to work together at their tables to discuss their understanding of what social prescribing is and what it isn't and what opportunities they see for it in the new neighbourhood health system, especially the advent of the Integrated Neighbourhood Teams.

Joint Forum Chair and Members, with contributions from WCVA (Wales Council for Voluntary Action) and wider VCS and public sector colleagues

One year on from the launch of the Northern Ireland Partnership Agreement between Government and the VCS, this session offers an honest reflection on early implementation - including progress made, barriers to momentum, and what’s needed to turn commitments into a real change in relationships, decision‑making and funding. Amid intense pressure on public services and the voluntary and community sector, how can we use partnership to drive meaningful, sustainable change. Drawing on experience in Northern Ireland and lessons from Wales, including its Third Sector Scheme, we’ll explore what partnership looks like under pressure and how to move forward together, from aspiration into action.

NICVA EDI Stakeholder Group and Include Youth with Abdifath Hussein

Join NICVA’s EDI Stakeholder Group and Include Youth with Abdifath Hussein for an energising session exploring what an inclusive future for our sector could look like — and how we can build it together. As architects of that future, we’ll draw on our collective intelligence, imagination, and the voices of those grounded in lived experience. We’ll hear about the realities faced by ethnic communities including young asylum seekers, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ communities, and others in our sector. Together we’ll identify supportive conditions, remove barriers, and shape a model to aim for. We end the session by each choosing a practical action to help move that future closer.

National Trust, Marie Curie, and Inspire Wellbeing

In a sector filled with turbulence and change, how can we foster resilience both individually and as organizations? Join Inspire, who will guide us in enhancing our resilience practices, along with the National Trust and Marie Curie, who will present an innovative ‘thinking outside of the box’ collaboration that emphasizes nature as a vital partner in promoting resilience and wellbeing. 

Fair Game - Women's Aid, PSNI and IFA

The session will set the scene and context of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in Northern Ireland and through the development of a strategic and policy framework the country has an opportunity to be change makers in addressing the issues.

The session will look at an innovative model of delivering a program of change to young men through the partnership of Women’s Aid, IFA and PSNI. This program is called Fair Game and is a groundbreaking collaboration between the IFA, Women’s Aid Federation NI and the PSNI. Fair Game is designed to support young people in developing the skills, understanding and confidence to build safe, respectful and healthy relationships. Created by Women’s Aid, the sessions are facilitated by IFA Foundation staff with buy in at local club level rolled out to hundreds of young people in their own grassroots communities.

Tackling (VAWG) requires a whole-of-society approach to understand and mitigate its profound, long-lasting impacts on individuals and communities. We will discuss the power of partnership and the role that Women’s Aid coming together with the IFA Foundation had. The power of partnership, collaboration and connection was powerful and opened the doors to an audience Women’s Aid would not be able to access.  Through partnership with the PSNI it further reiterates the power of coming together to deliver real change.

The workshop will appeal to the wider voluntary sector because it demonstrates how a major sporting body can be a vehicle for urgent social change such as specifically tackling VAWG.

Belfast Health Cities, Cottown LOL

This Engagement Hub will explore how local community spaces can be transformed through volunteer leadership, meaningful engagement and a clearer understanding of place.

Using Ballygrainey Hall as a practical, real-life example, the session will share the journey of a volunteer-led hall working to become more active, welcoming, sustainable and connected to wider community need.

Belfast Healthy Cities will connect this story to wider themes of health, wellbeing, place and community engagement. The Place Standard Tool is an effective and widely used tool for considering what works well within a place, identifying priorities for improvement, guiding partners and communities to agree solutions and supporting organisations to think about how engagement can shape future development.

The session will include discussion and reflection, giving participants the opportunity to consider how their own buildings, services or spaces can become stronger, more inclusive community assets, even contributing to improved health outcomes.

Ulster GAA

This session highlights how community organisations can play a leading role in biodiversity recovery, climate action, and community wellbeing through the Sporting Nature approach. Using practical examples from GAA and community club settings, it demonstrates how underused spaces around pitches and facilities can be transformed into pollinator habitats, native planting areas, and outdoor learning environments.

Participants are introduced to a four-stage framework: engaging clubs, planning biodiversity actions, delivering habitat improvements, and communicating impact to communities and funders. The session showcases real-life, low-cost, volunteer-led initiatives that generate both environmental and social benefits.

It also explores common barriers to participation and how these can be overcome, alongside how environmental action can strengthen governance, unlock funding, and support long-term sustainability. Attendees leave with adaptable tools, partnership insights, and a clear, practical model for community-led environmental leadership across the voluntary sector.

Cancer Focus NI and ARCHLC (ARC Healthy Living Centre Ltd)

This session explores how collaboration across the voluntary, community, and health sectors is transforming outcomes for people and communities across Northern Ireland.

Cancer Focus NI will share insights from the Northern Ireland Cancer Charities Coalition (NICCC), a partnership of 36 organisations working together to improve the lives of people affected by cancer. They will reflect on the Coalition’s journey, highlighting how building trust, shared purpose and a collective voice is helping to influence policy, amplify patient experience, and deliver more coordinated support.

Alongside this, ARC Healthy Living Centre will showcase its community-led, place-based approach to tackling health inequalities. Grounded in partnership working and shaped by the communities it serves, ARC’s model demonstrates how integrated, locally driven solutions can empower people to take greater control of their health and wellbeing.

The session will showcase the value of collective action, demonstrating how working together is already strengthening outcomes and creating new opportunities to deliver more equitable, high-quality cancer care and support.

Disability Action

VCSE teams are under pressure to deliver more with limited capacity, while people and employers need faster, clearer, more accessible pathways into work. This practical, interactive workshop explores how digital tools, AI,  and automation can streamline employability delivery - freeing staff time for the most impactful human-to-human support. 

Using real-world scenarios, participants will work in small groups to identify where simple improvements (clearer communication, structured planning, smoother processes) can remove barriers and improve employment outcomes. 

The session shares learning from Disability Action’s experience developing the empower app, a tool built within our Microsoft ecosystem to streamline programme processes using automations and will focus on transferable approaches that organisations of any size can adapt. Attendees will leave with practical ideas they can take back to strengthen delivery and inclusion.  

DTNI, Enterprise North West and Fujitsu

This interactive session explores how Community Wealth Building (CWB) and social value can be harnessed to drive positive social change and build resilient, sustainable communities. Participants will be introduced to the core principles of CWB and practical insights from successful approaches being implemented in the North West. The session will feature a case study on Fujitsu’s social value work, including the Tech Secure/Bytes Project collaboration, to highlight the potential of cross-sector partnerships. 

Ideas Fund (NWCN), ARC Fitness, QUB Science Shop, CDHN

Join North West Community Network, QUB Science Shop and the Community Development Health Network for this workshop which will explore community-led research partnerships, emphasising the value of a relational approach in fostering collaboration. It will highlight how building strong relationships supports inclusive research processes and leads to meaningful, lasting impact within communities.

Engage With Age and GroundWork NI

This interactive workshop will take us through some of the challenges facing our aging population, what is 'age', how both organisations are engaging with older people in today's society as well as some light-hearted but effective activities they are programming, delivering and developing now and for the future.