Dr Alan Barr OBE

Alan has 40 years experience of practice, teaching, research and evaluation in community development.  Until 2008 he was seconded to SCDC from a Senior Lecturer post at Glasgow University in the Glasgow School of Social Work (Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde).  He is still linked with the GSSW but is now a part-time Senior Research Fellow at Strathclyde Unversity.  He has worked in the voluntary and statutory sectors as well as academia.

Previous posts include: Assistant Director, Home Office Community Development Project, Oldham; Principal Officer for Community Development, Strathclyde Regional Council Social Work Department.  He has been a member of several Government advisory groups on community development and active citizenship. 

Alan was formerly Editor of the Journal of Community Work and Development and has published widely in the community development field.  He is author of the SCDC Learning, Evaluation and Planning (LEAP) Framework and joint author of its Achieving Better Community Development (ABCD) participatory evaluation framework and VOiCE (Visioning Outcomes in Community Engagement).

Within SCDC, of which he is joint founder, he has played the lead role in research and action-research projects for the Scottish Executive (e.g. Learning for Change: Community Education and Community Development 1997; National Standards for Community Engagement 2005; Better Community Engagement - a framework for learning 2007) and Joseph Rowntree Foundation (Towards Caring Communities Pavilion Press 1998 and Inclusive Communities York Publishing Services 2001).  He has co-directed its training and support programmes, with lead responsibility for Working Together: Learning Together (the national training programme for Social Inclusion Partnerships 2001-03), the National Standards for Community Engagement and Working and Learning Together (a support programme for CLD Partnerships 2004-06).