Communities
Consulting

Do you need support with building, sustaining or engaging communities?

Communities Consulting

Communities Consulting is a new arm of our established Brilliant Consulting practice, and is led by our Director of Communities, Jimmy Pickering.

About Jimmy

Jimmy has extensive experience of building educational communities across the UK. Jimmy leads our Communities team, which oversees our Parent Power chapters across the UK. Parent Power is a community organising based model for parent/carer engagement in higher education, utilising relational techniques to sustain engagement, build trust and develop parent leadership.

Jimmy has also:

  • Developed listening campaigns and leadership development programmes for young people, including a listening campaign with alumni from the Welsh Government’s Seren programme.
  • Completed a Churchill Fellowship, travelling to US East Coast cities to learn more about how long-term community organising in schools has created educational change and opportunity.
  • Delivered external community building training sessions for several organisations, including the Reach Foundation and UK Young Academy.
  • Been a trustee for Citizens UK since 2019, contributing to the strategic direction of the main community organising charity in the UK.
  • Embarked on a part-time Education and Social Justice PhD at Lancaster University.

As anticipated Jimmy was outstanding in explaining the process and impact of using community organising as a way of creating and curating policy and social change. Inspiring, informative and impactful.

Jimmy came to deliver the Parent Power training to our West100 participants who are all aspiring headteachers working to close the disadvantage gap across schools in the West Country. We wanted to learn more about how to involve parents in their children's future choices, particularly for those who might be the first in their family to go to university. The feedback on Jimmy's session was resoundingly positive. Participants found the material hugely relevant to their work, the presentation was engaging and the case studies helped to demonstrate how the work could have an impact within the various contexts they work in.

The Brilliant Club really took the time to understand our priorities and our position, and were open to being flexible in terms of the approach and delivery of a new Parent Power Chapter. We've very much appreciated the hard work they've put in to reaching out and listening to schools and parents, and the ongoing support to access other funding streams which will hopefully allow the Chapter to continue to grow.

Get in touch

Are you interested in our Communities Consulting work? Email Jimmy to find out how he could support your organisation with community building, engagement or sustainability.