Third Sector Training

'I will be able to use this in more ways than I could imagine. My eyes have truly been opened.'
Independent Living Organisation

BIHR is the leading provider of human rights training to a wide range of third sector organisations, with over 10 years experience of supporting the sector to use human rights in their work to empower individuals and influence wider training. Our training can support the third sector to be more effective in:

  • Empowering communities - communities who understand what their rights are can use this knowledge to strengthen their voice and influence with service providers and decision makers.
  • Advocacy and advice giving - providers of public services in the UK have a legal duty to respect and protect human rights in everything that they do. Advocates and advisers can use human rights as an additional tool to support their clients in challenging poor treatment.
  • Campaigning and lobbying - human rights add highly effective and powerful moral and legal weight when influencing policy makers at local, regional or national level.
  • Service provision - human rights provide a practical planning and decision-making framework for designing and delivering better quality services. Human rights principles and standards are also being increasingly used as a basis for various health and social care regulators, inspectorates and commissioners.

We provide training to a wide range of organisations including service providers, advice, advocacy and campaigning organisations, community groups, service user led groups and infrastructure organisations working at local, regional and national level.

In-house training

We run a number of set courses which we can deliver in-house for your team. Some of our most popular courses include:

  • Introducing human rights
  • Human rights and equalities
  • Human rights for advocates
  • Human rights and disabled people
  • Human rights and older people
  • Human rights and mental health
  • Human rights and refugees and asylum seekers
  • Human rights and young people
  • Human rights and campaigning
  • Human rights and health and social care

We can also work with you to create a tailor made session or series of sessions to suit the needs of your organisation. The standard length of our training courses is one day, but we are very flexible according to your needs and we can also deliver shorter awareness-raising workshops, seminars and conference presentations, as well as longer, more in-depth training programmes such as train the trainer modules.

Our training explores how human rights principles and standards can be used in a practical way to affect positive change for ordinary people in the UK, with a focus on the Human Rights Act. Our courses provide participants with the knowledge and tools to be able to recognise and challenge human rights abuses, and to use human rights language to negotiate better standards of public services, particularly for the most vulnerable.

Public training courses and events
We run a range of open training courses and events throughout the year. If you would like to be included on our mailing list to receive information about upcoming courses or events, please sign up to our training mailing list.

Consultancy
We also work with organisations beyond one-off training sessions, supporting you to embed human rights throughout your work. Previous consultancy work includes: support to develop human rights strategies, action plans and policies; pilot project support; development of tailored information resources and toolkits; development of train the trainer and other tailored training modules; and developing programmes of events. Please contact us to discuss your specific requirements.

Further information

If you would like to find out more or book a training session, please contact Ed Wilcox, Training & Consultancy Assistant, on 020 7848 1816 or training@bihr.org.uk. You can also find out more in our third sector training leaflet.

‘From Principles to Practice' - working in partnership to build the capacity of the third sector in using human rights based approaches
From Principles to Practice is a dedicated programme of work being developed by BIHR in conjunction with other third sector infrastructure organisations, aimed at building the overall capacity of the third sector to use human rights based approaches in their work.

Read more about this project.

Comments from previous participants:

Very well rounded and informative session for people with or without knowledge of human rights - very enjoyable.
Refugee visitors group

There is a real strength in applying the principles of human rights to equality issues.
Third sector infrastructure organisation

Everything I learned could apply to my daily work e.g. elder abuse and neglect, carer's rights and mental health patient's rights. Easy to understand and very relevant.
Age Concern BME Elders Forum

Completely relevant. This will percolate down to affect many vulnerable people positively. Empowering.
Mental health advocate

I can use my increased knowledge to inform my practice and in helping service users gain resources and care.
Older people's support group

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