370 Courses in Belfast

impact training

next level impact

Our Vision is unleashing potential to help individuals and organisations make distinctive, lasting and substantial improvements in performance. Our Values We believe that if people are engaged in striving to unleash their full potential, they will inevitably move to the ‘next level’ and achieve more for themselves and their organisations.

empatheyes

NEW WEBSITE COMING SOON Empatheyes vision is to make the world accessible using virtual reality to demonstrate the impact of visual impairment

nexus

Nexus has over 35 years’ experience offering a specialised professional counselling service to survivors of sexual trauma. Nexus also provides training and education workshops across Northern Ireland on topics such as consent, relationship and sexuality education, internet safety and child sexual exploitation. Every year in Northern Ireland there are thousands of sexually violent crimes reported to PSNI, and thousands more that go unreported. Without specialists support like ours, victims of these crimes will find it even harder to deal with the trauma they experience. The impact of this trauma can be devastating and is lifelong. From April 2019, Nexus also manage the 24 Hour Domestic and Sexual Abuse Helpline, which is funded by the Department of Health, Department of Justice and the Department for Communities. The purpose of the Helpline is to offer support, advice and referral for any victim of domestic and sexual abuse in Northern Ireland. The Helpline also offers support and advice to those concerned about victims, those with concerns as to whether abuse is occurring and to professionals.

northern ireland dyslexia centre

Dyslexia can be described as a continuum of difficulties in learning to read, write and/or spell, which persist despite the provision of appropriate learning opportunities. These difficulties often do not reflect an individual’s cognitive abilities and may not be typical of performance in other areas. Dyslexia is independent of intellectual ability. The impact of dyslexia as a barrier to learning varies in degree according to the learning and teaching environment, as there are often associated difficulties in the areas of: Auditory and /or visual processing of language-based information Phonological awareness Oral language skills and reading fluency Short-term and working memory Sequencing and directionality Number skills Organisational ability Dyslexia exists in all cultures and across the range of abilities and socio-economic backgrounds. It is a hereditary, life-long, neurodevelopmental condition. It affects up to 10% of the UK population at some level and can affect anyone of any age and background. Learners with dyslexia will benefit from early identification, appropriate intervention and targeted, effective teaching, enabling them to become successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens. Dyslexia Scotland January 2020.

reform academy

Bold ideas, big conversationsReform’s report, 'Academy chains unlocked', presents results from the first survey of academy chain chief executives. It recommends reform to the funding and oversight of chains to raise standards across the country. Since first introduced under Labour, academy schools have been the main way that governments have sought to raise the standard of schools. Their popularity with policymakers means that two fifths of state-educated children in England now attend an academy. While there are different forms of academies, all have greater responsibility over the curriculum, staffing and finances than other state-funded schools. Yet the evidence that academies have improved school education is not clear cut. Labour’s academies have almost certainly led to sustainable improvements in pupil outcomes. However, the Coalition Government’s academies have had variable impact, with some lowering, some sustaining and others improving education in those schools, depending on the starting point of the school. Taken in its entirety, the evidence suggests that the recent academies are not having the transformative impact on education that was expected by government. The Conservative Government has changed its approach to academies. It now expects all new academies to join or establish an academy chain – groups of two or more academies run by the same sponsor – believing that chains will help unleash the potential of academies to spread educational excellence across the country. Yet, as with individual academies, the evidence on academy chains shows variable impact on pupil attainment. There is a dearth of information explaining why, as no research has established a full enough picture of what academy chains do.

sport northern ireland

Sport Northern Ireland is the leading public body for the development of sport in Northern Ireland. We distribute funds on behalf of the Exchequer and on behalf of The National Lottery. Our vision is: Northern Ireland: renowned as a place where people enjoy, engage and excel in sport Our mission is: To lead sports development at all levels producing more participants and more winners Our Strategic Objectives are: Sporting Communities: To increase and support the number of people adopting and sustaining a sporting lifestyle Sporting Clubs: To enable more people to reach their sporting goals through a structured environment Sporting Winners: To help more Northern Ireland Athletes to win at the highest level Sport Northern Ireland remains clear that the values and cultures of an organisation drives its commitment to excellence and our values and principles set out our commitment to providing people in Northern Ireland with world class sporting experiences. In consultation with our partners and staff, we have developed a Values and Principles Framework that will guide how we work to achieve our Corporate Vision, Mission and Strategic Objectives: Leadership: Being strategic and using our resources and expertise to achieve the maximum impact Creativity: Pushing boundaries and being flexible and innovative in our approach Teamwork: Ensuring genuine collaboration and partnerships and embracing the contribution of others Excellence: Providing an outstanding service for all Integrity: Being accountable, transparent, honest and fair Sport Northern Ireland is based at the House of Sport in Belfast, and operates a National Outdoor Training Centre at the base of the Mourne Mountains – Tollymore National Outdoor Centre. Sport Northern Ireland also manage the Sport Northern Ireland’s Sports Institute (SNISI),which is the High Performance Arm of Sport Northern Ireland based at the Jordanstown campus of the University of Ulster. SINI prepares Northern Ireland’s best athletes to perform on the world stage by providing an environment that nurtures elite athletes and coaches.

generation women

I spent the first half of my career in a thick fog, and of course I got lost and ended up somewhere I didn’t want to be. I felt lost, miserable, and what little confidence I had was waning by the minute. I also became a total bore. I was consumed by how unhappy I was. I couldn’t even apply for another job because I didn’t know what I’d do. So I felt stuck. I had, by many measures, a great job, a great salary, in a great company. But I was in the wrong place. I was ambitious with nowhere to direct it, so it evolved into frustration! It took a fair bit of effort to turn it around, which started with working out what I wanted and developing some much needed confidence to get there. Thankfully I had a good basis with my Psychology degree, throw in a mountain of self-help books, a coaching and NLP qualification, a mountain of training on presenting and the like…and a real desire to build my brand, visbility, and expertise, meant I built a reputation for business and leadership transformation. That experience of having a big impact, being recognised, and having real influence made me feel like I could achieve anything. My values, purpose, and strengths were all aligned and I felt amazing! It came as quite a shock then to be confronted by my inner feminist one day. I’d had my first daughter (I now have 2), and was having a cheeky nap. You know how it is, I love my sleep! So for the first time ever, I sat her down in front of Nickelodeon so I could get some zzz’s. I was happily snoozing away when the advertising started to filter through to me. The ‘boys toys’ were all exciting and adventurous. The ‘girls toys’ made me want to vomit. All about being pretty and vacuous. I jumped off the sofa with an ‘oh hell no’! Ever since I was a little girl I’ve been driven by fairness. I think it may be because I’m the youngest of 4 and nothing ever seemed fair from my standpoint. My sister tells me of times I used to fight for gay rights at the dinner table and I was always arguing for what I felt was right (because it is). The one thing I’d never have called myself back then, or until that day, was a feminist. No, I’d been well trained by society to see feminists as embarrassing, hairy, dungaree-wearing angry women who made a show of themselves. This moment set a chain of events into action that lead me to start a political party where I live, and gave me the direction for the business I would later start.

imagine! belfast festival of ideas & politics

The 8th Imagine! Belfast Festival proved to be a successful offering involving 147 events and 359 speakers & performers during 21-27 March 2022. The eclectic week of talks, workshops, theatre, poetry, comedy, music, exhibitions, film and tours attracted an audience of 9,210 online and in-person attendees. Most of the events (82%) were free as the festival returned to live events after two years operating online. Although Covid continued to impact on our programme with 17 events cancelled due to illness, we were still able to roll out a huge range of events including headliners such as Michael Ignatieff, Tom Robinson, Helen Thompson, Michael Longley, Ece Temelkuran, Bill Neely and a host of exciting arts and cultural events – with many sold out or oversubscribed. We have conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the festival through an audience survey(3.5% sample). Our survey found that 95% of respondents felt the festival satisfied their expectations. It was particularly pleasing to find that 60% of audience members were attending a festival event for the first time and 37% of the sample had never been to a festival venue before, which suggests that we were able to reach new audiences and introduce them to new venues and partners. Other outcomes included: 12% of attendees came from outside Northern Ireland. Of these, 13% stated the festival was the main reason they were visiting Belfast. Audience spend: Our sample spent an average of £35 attending our events Number of festival partners: 52 Number of international participants: 40 with 27 events organised by participants from outside UK & Ireland Number of free events: 121 – 82% of total events Average ticket price: £7.8 Number of workshops: 14 Number of venues used: 35 Media coverage: Total number of items: 98. Reach: 4,022,796. AVE: £181,881. PR value: £545,644 Positive feedback was also elicited from survey respondents, detailed as follows: 95% of respondents felt the festival satisfied their expectations with only 1% reporting dissatisfaction (increased from 94% in 2021) 95.3% of people answered the question ‘after attending the festival, would you be more likely to attend other politics-related events’ (88% last year) 97.8 of respondents stated they were more likely to recommend the festival to family and friends after attending one of our events with 1.6% stating they felt the same When asked whether the festival promotes Belfast and Northern Ireland in a positive way, 98.4% said yes, with 1.6% responding as ‘don’t know’ People appeared to be reasonably well informed about the festival. 92% of the sample stated they were either well or somewhat informed about the festival prior to attending an event Respondents overwhelmingly found the subject matter of the event/performance as the main reason for attending the festival. However, familiarity with the speaker/performer was also cited as a factor. We also asked whether respondents considered themselves to be disadvantaged and found that 21% of the sample considered themselves to fall into this category which suggests were able to significantly engage with vulnerable and less well-off sections of the community. We invited the public to suggest and organise events in November 2021 and received a record 98 proposals, most of which we were able to support. This was a higher than expected level of public participation in the festival which resulted in more events than planned taking place in the 2022 programme. We also had a greater variety of events with more place-making events, exhibitions, music and discussions/workshop events compared to previous years.