Reaching Communities - Case studies

www.unionlearn.org.uk

Reaching communities Selected case studies

www.unionlearn.org.uk

Š Martin Jenkinson

Contents Usdaw checks out learning

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Scarborough

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Merseytravel

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Newcastle UNISON

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CWU community learning

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POA learning

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Unionlearn Yorkshire and the Humber

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Woolwich Trade Union Study Centre

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Adrian Kurlei, Work Experience and Andy Thwaites, Supervisor. Willmott Dixon, Scarborough.

Reaching communities – selected case studies

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Usdaw checks out learning Learning projects led by shopworkers’ union Usdaw have been helping local communities across the country check out a wide range of learning opportunities by building new partnerships beyond the workplace.

In East Anglia, Mandy Lloyd successfully combines the role of Usdaw union learning rep with her work as the Tesco Community Champion at the supermarket at Copdock, outside Ipswich.

Tesco Community Champions identify local needs, develop local community initiatives and support local organisations in order to forge closer relationships between local stores and their communities.

© Jess Hurd/reportdigital.co.uk

It was the local knowledge Mandy had acquired in her role as community champion that proved invaluable when take-up was lower than expected on a course in British Sign Language for staff at the store.

Mandy reached out to The Bridge School nearby, which uses the Makaton language programme to support around 35 children with severe, profound and complex learning difficulties.

“I’m trying to build up links with local schools, so I approached The Bridge School and they were more than happy – they would have filled all the places if they’d have had the chance, but we ended up with half our staff and half theirs,” she says.

“That was a good opportunity for us to work with the school and everybody thoroughly enjoyed the course: running the course with the school proved to them that they were part of the community and we wanted involvement with them, and not only mainstream schools.”

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Mandy Lloyd, Usdaw union learning rep and Tesco Community Champion.

The five-week course included the opportunity at the end to gain accreditation – everybody passed – and the feedback from everyone was very positive.

to learn something completely different. “To learn with my colleagues and members from the local community was a great opportunity,” she said.

“The BSL course will help with communication between students and staff, giving us an additional tool to help pupils in lesson time and social time,” says teacher Amy Van Der Gucht from the school.

BSL tutor Sister Marika Rebiscek was delighted to see the integration of the supermarket learners with the local community.

Tesco staff member Linda Carey said she’s always wanted

“Everybody really enjoyed the course,” says Mandy. “I made sure I kept in close contact with the school to make sure

I took the books along and distributed them among the young adults and teachers, who received them with great enthusiasm: the teachers were more than delighted that their workplace was chosen to receive the books and thought it was an encouraging venture to be a part of. there weren’t any problems and I know they enjoyed the interaction with us and several of the staff in the future would like to move up to the next level.”

Mandy believes it makes sense for Tesco ULRs to double up as community champions as she does.

“We’re in such a good position here at the Copdock store because we’re right on the edge of several housing estates and we’ve got the outlying villages to Ipswich so there’s so much scope for the work I can do with local schools and charities,” she says.

“I think it helps for me to have both roles because I’ve got that in-depth knowledge of what is on our doorstep, so I can only think it would be a plus for other Tesco ULRs around the country as well.”

Usdaw Eastern Division Project Worker Phil Gander agrees.

“Whenever we’re looking at running a Check-Out Learning campaign in a store, we always look at whether there’s a Tesco Community Champion and see if we can sign them up as a ULR to make the link between the union and the community champions programme,” he says.

Phil believes the major obstacle facing community learning is some people’s negative and out-dated perceptions

of what unions do – but that unions can overcome that obstacle through learning.

“Some people listen to the wrong people and get the wrong end of the stick about what we do: but if you go in and organise a course they can bring their mum or their sister to, they think the union’s marvellous – it’s a major tool for changing people’s attitudes towards unions.”

Eastern Division mobile ULR Helen King, who covers the Suffolk and Essex area, seized the opportunity of publishing event World Book Night to forge closer links with a local training organisation for young people.

She successfully applied to become one of the 20,000 ‘givers’ who donated four dozen copies of a title from the World Book Night shortlist – in her case Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war novel, All Quiet On The Western Front.

Helen gave the books to 4rce Training in Ipswich, which offers young adults the chance to develop on a personal and an academic level.

“I took the books along and distributed them among the young adults and teachers, who received them with great enthusiasm: the teachers were more than delighted that their workplace was chosen to receive the books and thought it was an encouraging venture to be a part of,” Helen says.

In the North-West, Liverpool ULR Jo Cahill has been working with a number of Community Learning Champions in her area to further promote lifelong learning opportunities in the city.

old people’s home in north-east Liverpool into a quality education provider and community resource over the past 11 years.

“They had previously asked permission to advertise from the foyer of the Tesco but had been refused, so I arranged for Sharon Ross to come and meet Tesco Community Champion Leanne Finnegan and Usdaw ULR Stuart Lloyd in store at Deysbrook,” Jo says.

“From this meeting, they have run two awareness days in the foyer to advertise the Communiversity to customers that were quite successful, with local people signing up for courses.”

In addition, the Communiversity team has run an event in the staff canteen advertising events throughout the area and now include Usdaw learning reps on their mailing list to keep them up to date with developments.

And the partnership has been two-way. Sharon has been able to secure Leanne a place on a free face-painting course at a local primary school – something she’s been looking to do since becoming a Tesco Community Champion.

Sharon’s also been able to offer Stuart advice and guidance about the apprenticeships on offer at Alt Valley Community College (of which the Communiversity is a part), which has proved very helpful for his 17-year-old son.

Through her outreach work, Jo has been able to offer concrete, practical support for the Communiversity, a grassroots initiative which has transformed what was once an Reaching communities – selected case studies

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Scarborough training An innovative partnership between construction union UCATT, housing group Wilmott Dixon and Yorkshire Coast Homes has opened a new training centre at the company’s Scarborough offices where tradespeople train alongside members of the local community.

The centre publicises what is on offer through the company newsletter to Yorkshire Coast Homes tenants, and Wilmott Dixon staff also spread the message through visits to schools, colleges and community centres – and are set to branch out into local radio with an offer of free advertising from a local radio station.

Since January 2011, 47 plumbers, carpenters, electricians and other qualified Wilmott Dixon staff who maintain Yorkshire Coast Homes have completed health and safety courses at the new centre alongside 23 people, mostly young, who have gained vital skills through the company’s work experience programme.

UCATT provided material support in terms of office furniture, projectors and flipcharts plus a range of print and CD-Rom learning resources as well as staff time and expertise to help get the centre up and running.

The two groups learn and train side by side, with the tradespeople mentoring the local residents and passing on their skills.

The training centre was formally opened in October 2010, when the company transformed what had been a dilapidated storage area into a fully equipped training centre with the help of UCATT and unionlearn’s Skills: Recession and Recovery (SRR) project.

“It’s really good to see UCATT and unionlearn working with Willmott Dixon at the Scarborough Training Centre to help promote skills and employability in the workplace and the wider community,” commented Group Chief Executive Rick Wilmott at the launch.

The centre is part of the company’s Opening Doors programme that offers tailored training and development opportunities for local people, introducing school students to the world of construction work and helping unemployed people to get back to work by giving them the opportunity to retrain or raise their skills levels in order to improve their employability.

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“We wouldn’t have been able to offer this without UCATT, because although we would have still run the work experience programme we wouldn’t have had anywhere to give people the training – they would have been sat round a boardroom table upstairs, which wouldn’t have been effective,” says Wilmott Dixon Training Manager Sharon Ayles.

The centre’s innovative approach has created a genuine win-win for everyone: the staff don’t have to travel to other parts of the country to access training, meaning they get to improve their own work/life balance; and the work experience learners gain from the mentoring that the company’s tradespeople provide as they study alongside them.

The centre helps the company develop its future workforce: it is inviting everyone who has already completed the work experience programme to apply for the two apprenticeships it will be offering later this year.

And it’s also helping put something back by offering skills to many young people who have often (but not always) been labelled ‘under-achievers’ at school.

“We’re benefiting all the people who gain valuable skills and gain morale from the fact that somebody’s bothered about them,” says Sharon.

“We can open doors for them by giving them training and work experience that opens their eyes about what’s out there and gives them the commitment, focus and drive to better themselves and get on in the industry.”

Wilmott Dixon Customer and Community Officer Melanie Watson mentors all the work placement students and apprentices at the company.

“The training centre is a very useful place for our tradespeople and our work experience students: when we have work experience students who are at college, their tutors and assessors can come and use the training centre for assessing their NVQ work,” she explains.

“When the members of the community come in, we ask them on the application form what is it that they want to get out of the work experience and we create a training programme for them,” Sharon explains.

Eighteen-year-old Tom Holdenby took a one-day health and safety course in Scarborough Training Centre after approaching Wilmott Dixon off his own bat towards the end of a two-year Level 3 Diploma in Construction and the Built Environment at York College.

“We then place them with a mentor who will look after them through their work experience and training – we’ve got a really fine bunch of mentors at Scarborough; they’re lovely men and women who happily pass on their skills.”

“The room was full of joiners, electricians, plasterers, all the different tradespeople – I was the only work experience person there but they treated me as one of their own, I felt very comfortable,” he says.

“And working with Sharon at a local level, it became obvious that we’re both heading in the same direction in terms of the aspirations we had to support learners, provide information, advice and guidance (IAG) and qualify the construction workforce.”

We can open doors for them by giving them training and work experience that opens their eyes about what’s out there and gives them the commitment, focus and drive to better themselves and get on in the industry.

The Scarborough Training Centre represented an opportunity to work on two goals at the same time – supporting the existing workforce with vocational training and reaching out to people in the local area who had been made redundant and the young unemployed, Steve says.

He first became interested in training as an electrician during his diploma, he says. “I really enjoyed the module on building services and that’s what interested me in going down the electrical path,” he says.

Steve believes it’s vital to develop more learning projects along similar lines to the Scarborough Training Centre.

“We can provide the opportunity for people to get a second chance at education and they get to see unions in a different light because learning means we have the chance to set out our stall about the contribution we can make in terms of vocational skills, productivity and highperformance workplaces,” he argues.

Liz Laughton, plumber and Andy Thwaites , Supervisor, Willmott Dixon, Scarborough.

© Martin Jenkinson

Since taking the safety course, Tom has been spending two days a week with one of the company’s qualified electricians, learning by watching how he approaches his different jobs and getting involved when he can. “I like hands-on learning like that,” he says.

“There was an opportunity to raise the skills levels of the workforce and improve productivity in relation to the work the company

was doing, and engage with the local community and young people in particular to provide opportunities for training and work experience activity.”

Tom is planning to start an electrical apprenticeship in the autumn. “I’m looking to start an apprenticeship when college starts in the autumn, and I hope my work experience will stand me in good stead with Wilmott Dixon,” he says.

Before the new training centre opened, the union was already working with the company to develop the learning agenda, explains UCATT National Project Worker Steve Craig.

“We’d previously worked with Wilmott Dixon to offer supervisor and team leader qualifications to the workforce and provide some Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) training now that you need to complete a health and safety touch-screen test to go on site,” he says.

Reaching communities – selected case studies

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Merseytravel When you want to help learning reps at a transport operation based in the city of The Beatles to work more closely with local community learning champions, there’s only one thing for it – get them all aboard a coach for a ‘magical mystery tour’.

That’s what happened in October 2010, when Merseylearn organised a coach trip around five areas of Liverpool for a group of community learning champions (CLCs) from local authorities in Liverpool and The Wirral and union learning reps (ULRs) from Merseytravel, and Merseyrail.

As the coach drove through each of the five neighbourhoods – Alt Valley, City and North, Liverpool East, South Central and South Liverpool – a CLC from the area would take to the microphone to act as local tour guide.

“Researching for the trip really made me get my brain working and I really enjoyed it,” says CLC Paul Campbell, a retired nurse who is a learning champion at the Liverpool East project based at the Anfield and Breckfield Community Council.

“I was surprised to find out how rich our area was in migrations from Germany and Scandinavia 1,000 years ago – and fascinated to compare that information with the knowledge I gained on the trip, especially about the new migrants who have settled in the Granby area.”

The coach also made a stop at Merseytravel headquarters in Hatton Gardens, where ULRs explained some of the work they’ve been undertaking through Merseylearn, including online learning with myguide (now www.go-on.co.uk) and Maths4Us, and The Reading Agency’s Six Book Challenge.

The coach trip was an informal learning activity in itself, as it gave ULRs and CLCs the chance to meet, exchange 6

Community learning champion Paul Campbell

ideas, share resources and make contacts for further collaborative projects.

“All in all, this was an excellent day that was both enjoyable and informative and provided the basis for future work bringing CLCs and ULRs together, with everyone feeling that they’d really got something from the day,” says Merseylearn’s Tony Norbury.

champions that I was taken to by my project manager – she wanted us to work together because we were doing in the community what they were doing in work,” she says.

“We’ve done tons of stuff through Merseylearn and got loads of contacts through them but it’s a two-way street – we’ve learnt a lot from them and they’ve learnt a lot from us,” she points out.

Sharon Ross, 49, from Norris Green, who became one of the city’s first community learning champions in autumn 2009, agrees that the coach trip around Liverpool was a very useful exercise.

“Obviously, ULRs are very experienced but their experience is limited to the workplace – we work with a much broader spectrum of people, and we’ve come up with a range of good ideas that ULRs all over Liverpool have been able to use.”

“I was introduced to Merseylearn at a meeting between the union learning reps and the community learning

The coach trip was followed up by a cross-sector event at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport in December, where

CLCs and ULRs got together to discuss working together in general and on Learning At Work Day 2011 in particular.

This time, the informal learning element of the day featured a behind-the-scenes tour of the airport that included a visit to the air traffic control tower to watch staff guiding planes in and out of the surrounding skies.

The group also took the chance to check out the Art Bus, a fully equipped mobile learning centre provided by Notre Dame Catholic College that is available for local groups to hire (parking is provided by Merseytravel).

© Colin McPherson

Merseylearn has been developing its links with the community through a variety of different routes, according to Project Worker Stephen Woods.

“We’ve worked with ULRs not only from the transport sector but also from the local authorities as well and they’ve given us ideas about where to go out into the communities to meet the learning champions,” he explains.

Merseylearn began reaching out into the community by working with other transport organisations in the region, kicking off with the Merseyside-wide Taxi Driver Training Programme in 2006 as part of its Union Learning Fund (ULF) project.

The training programme developed an NVQ for new and existing taxi drivers, and spread the word about the new qualification for the taxi and private hire sector through a group of ULRs that included Tony Norbury.

His influence on his colleagues has been immense, says fellow driver Carl Werbiski, who spent 15 years ferrying fares across Merseyside convinced he’d never be able to escape from what he calls the ‘taxi trap’ before discovering he could in fact make a change through Merseylearn.

All in all, this was an excellent day that was both enjoyable and informative and provided the basis for future work bringing CLCs and ULRs together, with everyone feeling that they’d really got something from the day.

It was Tony who suggested Carl become an NVQ Assessor of taxi drivers, and introduced him to the Mersey Tunnel learning centre where he could improve his literacy and numeracy before enrolling on the assessors’ course at Liverpool’s Hugh Baird College.

“I was anxious about going back into learning, but the college seemed to know you’re going to feel like that and they help you relax and really make you feel settled,” he says. “Once I got into the education system I began to really enjoy it.”

Thanks to Merseylearn, Carl’s days of believing he had no options are long gone: in fact, he’s about to start Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector (PTLLS) and thinking about becoming a teacher.

“Part of the taxi trap is that you’re dealing with money all the time and constantly thinking about money, and I used to think I wouldn’t do this because I could be earning that,” he recalls.

“But Tony showed me it was about more than money, it was about the bigger picture, it was about self-improvement, and he was right: I do feel better, I do feel more knowledgeable, I do feel more empowered.”

It was a similar story for railworker Angela Booth, who had spent 14 years working at Moorfields booking office before hearing about the opportunities available at Merseylearn for railway staff.

After extending the learning offer to the transport sector, working with the local community was a natural next step, says Merseylearn Manager Andy Thornton.

“Now we have evolved so that we’re much more outwardfacing, and we have broader partnerships with our sector partners not only in public transport organisations but right across the community and we’re raising people’s expectations that learning is for everyone.”

Merseylearn is one of 60 pilot online centres across the UK working with Remploy to offer refurbished computers for £98 in a bid to reach the nine million adults in the country currently without access to computer-based online services.

“We’re one of the very few organisations who’ve got the facilities to bring those opportunities to the different sectors of the community, helping people who are digitally disadvantaged access training and perhaps get online for the first time ever,” Andy says.

Reaching communities – selected case studies

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Newcastle UNISON Newcastle UNISON is leading a unique partnership project with Newcastle City Council to develop Community Learning Champions to spread the word about lifelong learning in black and minority ethnic (BME) and other communities in the city.

The branch is the only union organisation to secure funding from the Community Learning Champions programme financed by the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education (NIACE), which it did in the second round in 2010.

“We applied for the funding because we knew we could deliver by building on the work we’ve done with vulnerable workers within the city council who were themselves from a diverse set of communities across the city,” explains coordinator Rizwan Sheikh.

The Newcastle Community Learning Champions Project initially approached council workers from the Sudanese, Iranian, Brazilian, Pakistani and Congolese communities to identify potential learning champions and then broadened its approach, spending three months reaching out to organisations that worked with community groups on learning and training, learning providers and individuals.

Since then the project has run three training courses – in September 2010, March and May 2011 – and trained more than 20 community learning champions.

The nationally accredited course at Level 2 runs for 30 hours over six days and involves participants writing a case study based on an interview with a member of their community about their learning needs and researching informal learning opportunities available in their neighbourhoods.

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While it adheres to the guidelines set out by NIACE, the project tailors the course to the needs of the participants, Rizwan says. “We’re looking at the people in the room and what their needs are and where they’re coming from in terms of the communities they live in and we can build in exercises accordingly. The idea is to give participants the tools, the knowledge and the confidence to encourage members of their communities to get involved in learning as a means of progression – it’s a ‘self-help’ approach to community development.”

Sudanese community member Mohammed Abubaker Mohammed was initially sceptical when he first heard about the project, but all that changed when he joined the first training course in September 2010.

He saw how being part of the project could help him transform the information and advice he was already offering community members into something more substantial.

With the help of another Sudanese community member, Mohammed went on to set up a meeting to promote learning opportunities where they were able to promote learning opportunities and offer individual help with development to the 40 people who attended.

Mohammed and his colleague are now looking to set up a community learning organisation of their own, with the help of follow-on training Rizwan has been helping them secure for free from Newcastle Council for Voluntary Service (CVS).

Most people think learning and training costs money and it does in most cases but we’re providing an opportunity to get that training and get on that learning ladder free at the point of use.

“Most people think learning and training costs money and it does in most cases but we’re providing an opportunity to get that training and get on that learning ladder free at the point of use,” Rizwan says.

Iranian Nasrin Ahmadi had a number of links with many different communities as a result of her involvement with the Regional Refugee Forum in Newcastle for a number of years, but had never taken part in informal adult learning before she signed up for the CLC project.

Since completing the training, she has helped many people become more aware of learning opportunities across Newcastle and has started a new job with an employment agency where she has been applying her experience as a learning champion.

Newcastle UNISON’s long experience in union learning has been “absolutely key” to the project’s success to date, Rizwan argues. “Learning and development has always been integral to union work in this country alongside the bread and butter industrial issues, and our work with Community Learning Champions is part of that spectrum of what unions are there for – what we’re doing is connecting with the communities we represent on a daily basis in a new way.”

“We would not be able to do this had we not already been involved in learning and development in the way that

© Jess Hurd/reportdigital.co.uk

we are – supporting vulnerable workers, helping adult social care staff through the Bridges to Learning project, recruiting and training the number of ULRs we have: if we hadn’t already got that track record, we wouldn’t have been able to pursue this.”

The project’s partnership approach has also been crucial. “From the outset, this has been a partnership project. UNISON is the key, we’re the driving force, but we wouldn’t be doing this without the support of the learning and development coordinator and Citywide Learning within the council and without the support of the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) who provide an experienced, qualified tutor who’s also a community activist,” Rizwan points out.

An advisory group oversees the project, with representatives from Citywide Learning, WEA, Jobcentre Plus, Newcastle Futures (which provides advice and support to local unemployed people) and Newcastle City Libraries.

The project is picking up a fair head of steam already.

Rizwan says: “I’m getting contacted daily by people who are interested in the training and the follow-on training: the work we’re doing is already having a cumulative effect

I think engaging with the community on learning stretches people’s awareness levels of what the possibilities are for them but also shows them there’s more out there than they’ve got now, they can do more than they’re already doing.

which we knew would happen although we didn’t realise it was going to happen quite like this,” But it faces the major obstacle of time-limited funding.

“We have not gained further funding from NIACE beyond July 2011 but it would be a travesty if the project had to end just when we’re beginning.”

Working with community groups allows the union to encourage people beyond the workplace to broaden their horizons. “I think engaging with the community on learning stretches people’s awareness levels of what the

possibilities are for them but also shows them there’s more out there than they’ve got now, they can do more than they’re already doing,” Rizwan argues.

“The beauty of adult learning is that it’s affirming and confidence-building and gives you the encouragement to do more and learn more – participants on our training courses are saying ‘I now want to do this’ or ‘I now want to do that’ and most of them of people who haven’t engaged in any learning for a number of years – and that’s the difference that we can make.”

Reaching communities – selected case studies

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© Jess Hurd/reportdigital.co.uk

CWU community learning CWU branches around the country have been pioneering some inventive approaches to community learning partnership.

and materials, the whole thing was underway remarkably speedily: just three months on from Atwal and Steve’s initial conversation.

The union’s Wolverhampton Amal branch has been working with one of the Sikh temples in the West Midlands city to provide a range of adult learning for the past three years.

Now, in addition to the first batch of courses, the temple learning centre offers classes in health and safety, cookery, food and hygiene and even wrestling in the onsite gym taught by a former Olympic gold medallist. “They’re really doing well,” says Steve.

It all began when union member Balraj Singh Atwal and ULR Steve Hackford were discussing Atwal’s problems with getting time off to take courses in the onsite learning centre inside the Wolverhampton Mail Centre.

“We were talking about his life outside work and he told me how he went to the Sikh temple down the road from the mail centre and I asked if there were any facilities there he could use,” Steve recalls.

“He said there was a room but he’d never looked into learning and he didn’t know where to go – and it went on from there.”

After visiting the Guru Nanak temple and checking the room would be suitable, Steve got in touch with Karen Riley, the workforce development officer at Wolverhampton College, the provider that was already working closely with the union learning centre.

He then invited Karen and Atwal to the centre’s steering group to discuss the details of the provision. “I said we wanted roughly the same as what we had at our mail centre – English, maths, computers, foreign languages – and he was up for that and she was up for that,” Steve says.

With the temple providing the room and buying computers from the college, the union delivering IAG and adult learning support and the college providing all the courses 10

Steve has helped spread the word about the temple initiative throughout the CWU, running a workshop on community learning at the union’s 2010 ULR conference which has inspired other learning reps in the union to explore similar possibilities in their own communities.

The union is now looking to run at least one workshop on community engagement in each of its 10 regions over the next 12 months to help spread best practise and enthuse more ULRs about reaching out beyond the workplace.

In autumn 2010, the Norwich mail centre learning centre became the first organisation in Norfolk to provide the BBC First Click online education sessions for people new to computers.

“The oldest person we had there was 80 years old and he came back to see me at Christmas to find out what he could do next and I was able to signpost him to the trade union study centre in Norwich,” explains Eastern No 3 Branch Learning Rep Graeme Brinded.

“What was great about running those sessions was that local people could see the CWU, unionlearn and Royal Mail working together in partnership in the wider community.”

Graeme began making wider connections with the

The oldest person we had there was 80 years old and he came back to see me at Christmas to find out what he could do next and I was able to signpost him to the trade union study centre in Norwich. local community while working towards his NVQ Level 3 in Advice and Guidance (he’s since moved on to study for his Level 4).

“I’ve always had connections in local colleges, but when I did my Level 3 Advice and Guidance, I started attending network meetings around the city and made contact with a wide range of community organisations,” he says.

When the local branch of the Next Step careers service stopped hosting networking meetings for community organisations involved in learning, Graeme saw an opportunity for the union to step in – and now the CWU and Royal Mail in partnership are running a new forum, the Norwich NR area learning/ networking steering group.

“It was important to continue to provide networking opportunities for these organisations,” Graeme explains.

It helped that mail centre management was behind the idea. “Taking part in the steering group helps the company fulfil its corporate social responsibility and

community roles, but we also had a mail centre manager who really loved the whole concept and it looks like the new mail centre manager is very interested as well,” Graeme says.

Graeme believes community engagement is important for a whole host of reasons. “I know what’s going on and other people know what I’ve got available: for instance, the training organisation Meridian East, which is a social enterprise on the steering group, offers help with CV writing and job skills – which is useful for organisations that are facing job losses like Royal Mail.”

But it’s not just about reaching out to other organisations – it’s about developing the potential of your own ULRs and learners, he argues.

“There is considerable scope for ULRs to deliver community learning by passing on skills gained from a hobby or other interest,” he points out.

“Members who have hobbies or skills they would like to pass on to others are also a source

of potential provision – this could become a question on learning surveys and questionnaires.”

And working with community organisations helps CWU members develop themselves. “I do a lot of encouraging people to get involved in voluntary work because that gives them the chance to learn new skills and quite often you can access training through the voluntary sector that you’d have to pay for elsewhere,” Graeme says.

Working with the community can often make learning more viable, explains CWU Union Learning Project Manager (England) Paul Dovey. “If you’ve got the numbers, you can negotiate better fees and courses are easier to run,” he points out.

“Community engagement is a two-way street – we can offer Community Learning Champions a lot of support and the wealth of experience we’ve picked up over the past ten years, while community groups bring skills and knowledge of their own as well, so they might be running sessions for us in certain circumstances,” he says.

“Working with the community also means we can share resources – we could never run wrestling classes with a gold medal winner on one of our own sites the way they do in the Wolverhampton Sikh temple.”

CWU learning centres working with schools and libraries have to negotiate the particular obstacles found in any organisation (such as safeguarding in schools), but none of these obstacles are insurmountable, Paul says. “There are some really good resources out there if we can all start working together more smartly.”

Balraj Singh Atwal and ULR Steve Hackford at the Guru Nanak temple, Wolverhampton

Reaching communities – selected case studies

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POA learning The POA learning centre on the Isle of Sheppey off the coast of Kent is promoting its services to the local community by one of the most direct routes possible – sending flyers home from local primary schools in pupils’ book bags.

“Early in 2011, we contacted Eastchurch Primary School, which is just down the road from the centre, and I went to speak to the headmistress, Pauline Shipley,” recalls project worker Gareth Williams.

“From that, we decided we would come into the school and deliver sessions to parents after they’d dropped off their children, where they could work on their literacy, numeracy and basic ICT at the school for a couple of hours.”

To promote the drop-in sessions, the centre designed a flyer for parents to go home with the children in their book bags, and now the centre staff are currently running sessions for parents in the school’s computer suite once a fortnight.

Many of the parents are unemployed and looking for help to obtain new skills and get additional qualifications in their search for jobs.

“We tell parents that if they need extra support on top of the school sessions they’re more than welcome to come into our centre in their own time and do some more work up here, which is a good way to offer our facilities to them,” Gareth says.

The sessions are not only encouraging parents to develop themselves – by going into the school, the centre has also found that support staff are interested in accessing learning opportunities and enrolled some of them on courses as well. “They’re also part of the local community, and this is a good way to get to them,” Gareth points out.

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It’s about being a little bit creative, getting a nice idea that attracts the parents and putting that across as well as possible.

The centre has also started promoting learning to parents at another nearby primary school, St George’s, where it plans to run a similar service using the computer resources onsite, and intends to continue expanding the offer through more schools in the community.

Learning centres that are interested in following the POA example should arrange to talk to the head of their local school, Gareth suggests.

And if the school wants to get on board, it’s then up to the centre to make the offer to parents as attractive and specific as possible, he says.

“We promoted the idea of offering help to parents who might be struggling to understand their children’s English or maths homework – it’s about being a little bit creative, getting a nice idea that attracts the parents and putting that across as well as possible,” Gareth says.

At the Bullingdon Union Learning Centre, in Bicester in Oxfordshire, manager David Dillon is also keen to reach out to local people, and makes a point of making contact with local neighbourhood organisations and the local media to help ensure people know what’s on offer.

“We’ve advertised the centre through the local Chamber of Commerce and the local media: you need to contact all the local organisations,” he says.

“I’m a member of the Neighbourhood Action Group (community groups who advise the police on local issues that need addressing), and we’re holding the next meeting of the NAG in the centre – which is another way of branching out to people.”

The centre has also organised a family festival of learning every year since it was opened in 2009, where the staff organise fun activities as well as taster sessions to encourage people to take up learning.

“The family festival is advertised throughout the local area, through local schools and other organisations, and we get quite an intake on that: you get people into the centre so they can see what goes on,” David says.

Local resident Joe Kennedy was introduced to the centre by a friend who was already attending to improve his computer skills. He had never used a computer before but by the end of his first visit had learnt how to type his own name and change the font and size onscreen.

“This was a massive achievement for me, someone who has never used computers before,” he says.

“I remember thinking that I will definitely be coming back to the learning centre: I was really excited about the possibility of eventually being able to contact my family in Denmark through a webcam.”

Meanwhile at the other end of the country, the POA Learning Centre at Hatfield, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, in their drive to open up the centre’s resources to the local community, are working to raise the centre’s profile locally by securing local news coverage, contributing to community group publications and taking part in major community events.

© Colin McPherson

“You’ve just got to get out there, you’ve got to know who else operates in your community –there are a lot of enterprise organisations and neighbourhood organisations within Hatfield and the surrounding area, for example,” says centre manager Ellen Schofield.

“You have to find out what’s happening and sometimes piggy-back on what they’re doing – if they’re offering an introductory course, you can offer the next step up, for instance.”

But word of mouth also plays a part in attracting learners.

“Because a lot of the prison staff we service live locally, people get to know about us by word of mouth and come in to see if we can help them with what they want,” Ellen says.

Former steelworker Andy got in touch after a friend suggested the centre would be able to help him when he was made redundant in 2009 at the age of 50.

He was keen to retrain as a teaching assistant, but a diagnostic test at a local college showed he needed to brush up his English and maths.

With the help of the staff at the centre, Andy started a Level 2 numeracy course and the ECDL computer qualification within weeks of finishing work in the summer instead of having to wait until the beginning of a new academic year.

“I worked at my own pace, fitting an hour or two here and there,” he says. “The staff were extremely helpful. Any assistance I needed, I could just give them a call or email, no problems.”

Reaching communities – selected case studies

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Unionlearn Yorkshire and the Humber An innovative approach to community engagement helped unionlearn’s Yorkshire and the Humber region to engage almost 7,000 adults in a wide variety of informal learning sessions during the Celebration of Learning in autumn 2010.

The region used the initiative to stage a series of informal learning events in the community, working with everyone from sports clubs to churches to offer people of all ages the chance to try something new.

“I firmly believe we have to go to where people are – you can reach an almost infinite number of learners for very little capital spend by going to sports clubs and churches, places where people naturally congregate,” argues Regional Co-ordinator Sharon Burke.

The flagship event in the region was a hugely successful fun day at Chapeltown Youth Development Centre (CYDC), a voluntary organisation in north-east Leeds that provides a range of sporting and education activities for children and young people between four and nineteen years of age.

The CYDC fun day exceeded all expectations, with hundreds of children and their families packing into the Prince Philip Centre for a wide range of sessions aimed at people of all ages. The most popular events were the rugby taster training and the mini matches for the younger children.

In addition, the Chapeltown Cougars Under-8s rugby team took the opportunity to show off their new strip – sponsored

by Unite.

The region also ran community events at Garforth Town Football Stadium, Hunslet Hawks Rugby Stadium, and Milford Sports Club.

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Another event which proved a significant success was the Black History Month event organised with the New Testament Church of God.

including signing, dancing and drumming, and a concert at which participants demonstrated the skills they’d acquired earlier in the day.

The region secured money from The Learning Revolution festival of adult and community education in 2009 to run three-day Black History Month event with the church, which attracts people from 57 denominations and has an average weekly congregation of 1,200.

The 2010 event adopted a similar approach, with one of the highlights giving participants the chance to sing and record with the visiting Jamaican rugby team at a Leeds recording studio.

The 2009 event included sessions where younger members of the church interviewed the older generation about their experiences migrating to Britain and their memories of the countries they left behind, as well as a variety of workshops

“We recorded the national anthem, which was a fantastic learning experience for people in the community who wouldn’t normally have an opportunity of learning,” says New Testament Church member Janet Hamilton.

Unionlearn has been working with our community for several years, specifically on learning and skills, but also around broader issues and has provided support and direction to groups and individuals that has proved beneficial not only to themselves but the wider community.

“And we had two workshops, Understanding the Music Recording Process and Understanding the Video Production Process: both proved to be a fantastic enjoyable experience and a wonderful learning experience for everybody.”

In addition, the event included a vocal workshop; an African drumming workshop; an African dance workshop; a steel band workshop; a drama workshop; and a craft workshop – all of which gave people the chance to deepen their knowledge of Black history and culture.

As before, workshop participants all got the chance to show what they’d learnt in the closing concert at the end of the event.

Unionlearn has been working with The New Testament Church of God for the past three years, ever since local GMB activist and church member Charlie James (who would go on to receive an MBE for his services to the community in 2011) approached Sharon for help promoting learning.

Since then, unionlearn has helped set up a learning centre at the church, using a suite of computers no longer needed

by Leeds University.

Teachers and lecturers and other congregation members run the learning sessions in their own time, using free resources such as myguide, the publicly-funded website designed to help people take their first steps with computers, and free independent interactive multimedia training courses from Advance Learning Interactive Systems Online (ALISON).

“Tambú is a rhythm in Jamaica and yet our people don’t know of it – Jamaica is known for reggae music but beneath the reggae you have tambú, bruckins, kumina, dinki mini, burru – all them rhythms and many more,” explained drum workshop leader Ansell Brodrick.

“Unionlearn has been working with our community for several years, specifically on learning and skills, but also around broader issues and has provided support and direction to groups and individuals that has proved beneficial not only to themselves but the wider community,” says Janet Hamilton.

And steel band workshop leader Melvin Zakers was able to demonstrate the enormous versatility of the steel drum, by showing how it was possible to use the instrument to play everything from jazz standard Take Five to novelty pop hit The Birdie Song.

The church is keen to promote learning opportunities to all its members: it offers informal sessions on keeping fit and eating healthily to its older members on the days it provides them lunch, and is collecting their oral memories with the aim of publishing them in a book.

Chapeltown Cougars Under-8s rugby team show off their new strip

“I had little belief in myself and did not think I was capable of achieving very much, but unionlearn showed me a different picture of myself and opened up new avenues and I have now gone on and on and not looked back since that moment,” says Beverley Levi-Smith.

The biggest obstacle the region faces is financial, says Sharon Burke. “The lack of small amounts of capital is a massive issue.”

Sharon believes unions shouldn’t treat adult and community education separately from workplace learning.

“We shouldn’t make the mistake off boxing off workplace learning from community learning – in my view there’s a massive overlap between them,” she argues.

She also believes that unions can increase their engagement with their local communities by mapping not only where their union learning reps work but also logging everywhere that they help out or volunteer – because they could also be promoting learning in those organisations as well.

“There’s massive untapped potential: we’ve got ULRs who help out in nursing homes and sports clubs and we should map all this activity, which I believe you can trace back to the training they had through TUC Education which has sparked an interest or consolidated an interest – and that’s powerful stuff.”

Reaching communities – selected case studies

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Woolwich Trade Union Study Centre The Trade Union Study Centre, based in Woolwich, south London, has been building up its community learning by pounding the pavements – offering its specialist expertise to a wide range of community groups, organisations and services in the local area.

©2011 Copyright Rod Leon

Centre staff visit the libraries in Woolwich and Plumstead on alternate Mondays to raise awareness about lifelong learning in general and the wide range of courses on offer at TUSC in particular.

It was a discussion with Paula Bellamy, the Skills for Life manager at Greenwich Libraries and Information Service, that identified how libraries needed help promoting their literacy and numeracy programmes, and the TUSC library information points were born.

“We have a desk, we take our banner advertising all our courses, and we interact with people on a one-toone basis: now we have a number of people who go to those libraries using the centre,” explains TUSC Project Development Officer William Brizan.

By running its library-based information sessions, TUSC reaches learners with whom it might not otherwise make contact – single parents, older people, and younger learners who need help with literacy and numeracy.

“We reach a lot of people who wouldn’t have had the chance to engage in learning because they would never have walked into a college, but they see our banner and they think, ‘I could improve my IT this way’,” says William.

The library link-up has boosted the centre’s standing in the local community. “Partnering with the libraries has given

the centre much important visibility and a trusted local association, important to the general public,” explains centre manager Cathy Roberts.

And the centre’s welcoming atmosphere is an important attraction for new users. “Many of the library users who register with our centre continue to comment on how important it is for them to find an empathetic and supportive place to develop their literacy, numeracy and IT skills.”

Local resident Susana Godinho started studying at the TUSC in autumn 2010 after spotting an advertisement for its English and maths courses in the local paper.

“I gave them a ring to find out more and I started the Level 1 course in literacy at the end of 2010: I wanted to do that course because I didn’t have any qualifications in this country,” she says.

“Learning at the centre was very good: I’ve mostly worked by myself online but whenever I need something, the people who work there are very helpful.”

After finishing the literacy course, Susana is going to have a numeracy assessment and then move on to studying maths at the centre.

Learning at the TUSC has already made a big difference to her life, she says. “I’m much more confident now, and I’ll have a qualification that can get me a better job.”

The centre has also begun to offer its literacy, numeracy and IT support to groups of people specifically referred for help from the local Jobcentre Plus – single parents and people claiming unemployment benefit for up to 13 weeks.

“The majority of the services in the local area are based on employability skills, but to put a good CV together you need good Skills for Life, so we put that to Jobcentre Plus

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We reach a lot of people who wouldn’t have had the chance to engage in learning because they would never have walked into a college, but they see our banner and they think, ‘I could improve my IT this way’. and they said they could sign us up as an intermediary provider,” William explains.

It’s win-win for all involved. “People receive a tailored programme here with no pressure and they get to work on skills that they perhaps haven’t worked on for a good few years, while Jobcentre Plus get to work with a specialist provider, different from all the other providers, and I think they really value that,” says William.

“This partnership is important to the study centre because once again it allows us to work to empower clients and support them to achieve their objectives of training and employment, leading to a happier life,” Cathy says.

“Many of our volunteers have been unemployed for an extended period of time and are happy for the opportunity to come in and learn new skills while contributing to the smooth running of the centre,” says Cathy.

The centre has been building links with Sure Start and other local children’s learning centres in Charlton, Plumstead and Woolwich. “We have had good interest from the parents who use these centres, while some centres have enquired about the TUSC running workshops onsite,” says Cathy.

“While employment cannot be offered to all who volunteer because of financial constraints, our volunteers are trained up to the highest standards, offered places on courses and become fully fledged members of the team for the period they are at the TUSC.”

TUSC has also targeted local organisation with deep links with the local community, including local football club Charlton Athletic, which is well-known throughout southeast London for its community-driven initiatives.

Successfully engaging with the local community is all about making things happen, William argues.

The centre is running a series of major advertorials in the club’s magazine, highlighting the courses on offer and including case studies of local learners who have progressed and developed with the centre’s help.

The centre is also running its own employability workshops covering CV writing, looking for work, job adverts/ application forms and motivational skills, which are all aimed at people at risk of redundancy or early retirement as well as unemployed people.

TUSC has also had a positive response from local civic and community groups and charities in an attempt to attract new learners who might not be aware of what’s available – including Greenwich Mind, Age Concern Greenwich, and the local YMCA.

“We hope the employability workshops will create interest and get people through our doors and that they will go on and undertake more learning with us,” says William.

Centre staff have made a point of going out to places where they are likely to engage potential learners: they ran two sessions with the local branch of Sainsbury’s supermarket during Adult Learners’ Week 2011.

The centre is also providing weekly Skills for Life courses for clients of national employability training provider Twin Employment & Training at its Woolwich office as a result of a work in partnership agreement between the two organisations.

“From my experience, I think you have to have a very positive, pro-active approach – you have to hit the asphalt, you have to initiate, you have to go out there and enquire what services are needed,” he says.

And there’s more the staff plan to do in the months ahead. “There’s still lots of avenues to explore,” says Cathy.

The centre has also scored a major success with its volunteer scheme, and has made two support staff appointments from its pool of volunteers (both of whom had started volunteering at the centre after periods of unemployment).

Reaching communities – selected case studies

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Published by unionlearn Congress House London WC1B 3LS Tel 020 7636 4030 www.tuc.org.uk Design by Rumba Printed by College Hill Press November 2011