Government Guidelines about Local Strategic Partnerships and Community Networks emphasise the importance of engaging those people who are most vulnerable to exclusion. In order to achieve this Community Network’s have been given particular responsibility for developing policies encourage inclusive practice.

In response to this, the Community Network for Manchester (CN4M) is founded upon a number of core principles including:

The Community Network will be broad and inclusive. Together we will seek to involve a wide range of individuals, groups and networks, particularly those who have normally been excluded from decision-making structures.

The Community Network will provide different opportunities for involvement. Together we acknowledge that individuals, groups and organisations have different interests and concerns and that a variety of mechanisms will be necessary to allow each to contribute and communicate in their own way.

CN4M Development Plan 2001-2

Considerable energy and effort has been put into ensuring that key Community Network meetings such as the CN4M Annual Forum and the Community Network Strategy Group are accessible to all. Most recently the Manchester Disabled People’s Network (MDPN) have prepared extensive guidelines on accessible meetings and events on behalf of the Community Network for Manchester (CN4M).

This policy seeks to deepen and improve accessibility arrangements across the network – in particular for disabled people. It is based on a ‘social model of disability’ which rejects a view of disabled people as victims or problems, classified by their impairment, in favour of an understanding of disability as a problem of exclusion from ordinary life requiring the removal of barriers to participation.

The policy is intended to apply to core CN4M meetings and activities, the meetings and activities of CN4M sub-networks and any other activity organised through Community Empowerment funding.