Building on Strong Foundation
Alternative Round GONW
Project Reference No: ESF
Project Dossier Number:
Project Description
We will recruit individuals who are not current/recent learners and who may be members of Priority Groups to Foundation Degree programmes, offering individualised support prior to the programme, during the programme and where appropriate into employment. The project addresses barriers to participation and undertakes actions that support retention and success.
This project will enable people who are members of particular priority groups the majority of whom will be without existing qualifications, low level or outdated skills the opportunity to move on to and gain higher level qualifications.
Our adult target group face further barriers, many of which relate to their status as members of disadvantaged groups and to family and care responsibilities.
This project centres on addressing a core barrier of not having the qualifications to move into higher level education,
we will:
(a) Provide extended initial awareness raising, guidance, and labour market information to help people make informed choices, meeting on the needs shown in the DfEE study.
(b) Combine this where necessary with initial confidence building, including delivery in centres in the community, recognising that having been outside formal education for some time is itself a barrier. We also offer first step provision in study skills, IT/ICT, communications and maths, recognising that lack of these skills is itself a barrier to progression.
(c) Enhance the Foundation Degree provision by providing additional support prior to entry, through the development and delivery of additional, relevant units and support whist on the programme and by providing additional support for access to employment. The project will offer a flexible programme, again recognising that this helps address financial barriers (including where people want to combine study with part time work, and barriers to access caused by family/dependant care responsibility.
Process
Individual barriers will be identified in the initial review and support structured to overcome these. This support can include child/dependent care, through allowances, through support for people with dyslexia and other disabilities (including the use of adaptive technology), and through providing ESOL support. The guarantee of progression against subject to achievement itself addresses a barrier; adults are unwilling to risk investment of their time and effort against an uncertain outcome.
We will recruit individuals who are not current/recent learners and who may be members of Priority Groups to Foundation Degree programmes, offering individualised support prior to the programme, during the programme and where appropriate into employment. The project addresses barriers to participation and undertakes actions that support retention and success.
We already have experience of supporting individuals from Priority groups via a number of previous projects (including projects undertaken with the support of co-finance which target individuals with disabilities, the rurally isolated, single parents, residents of CED wards and esol needs). We will utilise this experience in the delivery of this project.
We would emphasise that within Priority groups there is such a wide diversity as to render any approach which does not recognise intra group diversity meaningless. People with a disability might have a learning disability, a specific learning difficulty, an acquired physical disability, a sensory disability, a limitation caused by poor mental health or a medical condition preventing them from taking part in certain activities. All of these sub categories have a range of levels of severity and this in turn is modified by the attitude and approach of the individual experiencing the disability.
To overcome this wide range of intra category variation we will respond to individual need rather than assumptions of need based on category. We put great stress on identifying individual goals needs and barriers prior to an individual being involved in project activity through the creation of a detailed individual action plan.
We are sensitive to both the broad issues confronting individuals who have certain characteristics and to the statistical data that shows the average level of disadvantage experienced by members of the group. In broad terms we will respond to:
The needs of women where studies (particularly Cabinet Office Women’s Unit research) show they can tend to suffer disadvantage through lack of prior management experience, the prejudice of some male managers, the relatively low status of the occupations/ roles within organisations where they are predominantly employed (administration for example rather than management) and through business support agencies failing to recognise the value of part time enterprise (in which women are disproportionately represented).
Within our society women are still the prime carers within families in relation to child, dependent and elder care and as such confront barriers related to broken career patterns, the effects of part-time working on perceptions of capability and the need to have constraints around work patterns.
In response to these perceptions and barriers we will demonstrate our responsiveness by adopting training methods and content which are flexible, individually responsive and which promote equality within the workplace.
“All the activities described on this website are supported by European Social Fund, funded via Lancashire Learning and Skills Council or Government Office North West, or are funded by the North West Development Agency”
© Lancashire Colleges Consortium
Members of the Consortium Delivering Project
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