Personal  and Community Development Learning (PCDL)

Personal and Community Development Learning is all learning which you do for your own personal development, pleasure, leisure or which helps with community development.  It does not always lead to a qualification.

It can be carried out anywhere, any place and via any organisation as well as more generally recognised educational settings.

In government funding terms, PCDL is for adults.  The government is committed to supporting this type of informal learning but, because most government educational funding is for enabling adults to gain the qualifications they need, the amount available for informal learning is very limited.

Because of this the Government has asked all areas to set up PCDL Partnerships to include all organisations who engage in informal learning.  These organisations include Sports and Leisure Centres, the NHS, Libraries, Museums, Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), Women’s Institute (WI), private trainers, voluntary organisations and more.  Please click here to see a list of Thurrock’s PCDL partners.  We are a very inclusive partnership and we are happy to involve more organisations either on the Steering Group or as part of the wider partnership.

The work of the PCDL Partnerships is to map what is currently available in their area (so far as possible), use this to identify gaps, decide how – and who is best placed – to fill those gaps and how together we can make best use of our funding by avoiding unnecessary duplication and providing as comprehensive a service as funding will permit.

As soon as we have done this, we will publish on this and partner websites information on who is offering what with contact details of the organisation so that you can contact them for more information.

We have already agreed our Terms of Reference and you can click here to read them.