Welcome!

Open Hearts Open Minds is an essential and growing collection of resources and exercises.  It's designed by  and for  people who want to improve the way they, and their organisations, work with people facing social exclusion - whether through deprivation, discrimination or viscious cycles of disadvantage. 

User-friendly and inspirational, this service aims to be your favourite place to come for a fresh perspective on how to make a difference.  You can see just what people think of our free news service for yourself, by looking at the great feedack we had in the results of our reader survey conducted in Feb 08!

With our e-news service providing the latest facts and ideas, you'll find new material each month. Click on the 'Sign Up' button (look right!) to receive your own copies of the e-news for free - no strings attached!  It's an easy way to stay up to date and to access exercises that'll help you make the links between your work and different aspects of social exclusion.  

There's something for everyone, whether inclusive working is written large in your job title or not!  Our growing e-learning community of people like you includes Project Officers, Administrative Staff, Customer Service Teams, Managers, Specialist Community Workers, Policy Makers, Councillors, Health Practitioners, Social Workers, Teachers, Fire Fighters.. you name it! 

What's the attraction??!!  Here's an overview of our pages where you'll find:

• News - providing stories and insights on how social exclusion affects people's lives
• Top Tips - a growing collection of bright ideas for simple ways of working more inclusively
• Exercises - developed by people like you, for you, to stretch your thinking and help make the links between the issues and your job;
• Useful Links - to a range of websites where you can drill into more detail on our A - Z of social inclusion themes from Ageism to Youth Exclusion  
• The Library  - where you'll find food for thought in our e-news back-copies, categorized under themes, like Disability, Gender Equality, Gypsies and Travellers, Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual and Trans, Mental Health, Migrants and Refugees, Poverty, Rural Issues etc... 
• Images - details of the pictures we've found to illustrate diversity and the effects of isolation, deprivation or discrimination.

If you're new to learning about social exclusion or want a refresher on what it's all about, why not have a look at our webcast !  
►Hear about how you can get beind the jargon to find the real people it's all about, to make a difference to their lives....  
►You might find this useful as an induction resource too....  
(Tip - zoom the webcast screen to 50% for best results).

Who provides this service and why?
Each edition of the e-news is compiled by a team of volunteers from a variety of service providing organisations - people like you. This is an initiative developed and supported by Common Ground the social inclusion task group of Devon Strategic Partnership and Exeter Community Initiatives as part of its Neighbourhood Action Support Programme. It's funded by Neighbourhood Learning in Disadvantaged Communities, Defra and Devon County Council.  
 


Anything you'd like to tell us?
►If you'd like to join the editorial team, contact us  
►If you'd like to make suggestions for topics or top tips that could be covered in our e-news, email the editors
►If you'd like to give us feedback please send us your comments
►If you'd like us to post details of relevant training or events in the e-news, let us know  well before the end of the month
For other contact details of people involved with providing the service, see the contact us page

Buy printed copies of Open Hearts Open Minds 
Learning resources from this website are also available as a pre-printed handbook, containing information to read about social exclusion and inclusion, and experiences that make people more vulnerable to cycles of disadvantage.  You’ll also find  thinking tools and exercises from the website there too.  
Either contact Exeter Community Initiatives (ECI) to order your copy: info@eci.org.uk or see here for an order form - http://www.eci.org.uk/downloads/open_hearts_open_minds.pdf