Learning & Skills

ISMA are tackling stress

Wednesday 4th November was National Stress Awareness Day, organised by ISMA (www.isma.org.uk)

They are now inviting all colleagues in the post-16 sector to complete the HSE stress survey. It's 18 months since UCU undertook its surveys which led to reports on Tackling Stress in the FE and the HE sectors. ISMA woukld like to know what the picture is now, across all areas of the post-16 education and skills arena. Anyone who participates will receive a free copy of the results but they will not receive any unsolicited follow-up mails, spam etc.

Details are at www.rcu.co.uk/stress

The survey is ‘live' now and will remain open until 23.59 on Friday 13th November.
If you have any questions about the survey, please contact plucas@rcu.co.uk  or 01772 885999.

Orders being taken for The Really Useful Book of Learning and Earning 2010

Niace are delighted to announce that they have copies of The Really Useful Book of Learning and Earning 2010 available to order. 

Orders are being taken now and books will be sent to you in December 2009. 

The books are available as a pack of 5 for £12.50 or a box of 50 for £100.  If you want more than 1,000 copies then please get in touch with Michael Lyden, on 0116 285 9701 to discuss discounts on bulk orders. 

Place your order today by calling 0870 600 2400 or order online at: http://shop.niace.org.uk/ruble2010box.html

Bromley Field Studies Centre offering six free 'Wild and Wonderful' gardening courses

Following a successful bid to the Learning and Skills Council, The Field Studies Centre is delighted to offer this training to Bromley's residents. It is particularly keen to target adults living in the Cray area from BR5 & BR6 postcodes. The course will include:

• How to garden in containers, window boxes and small spaces
• How to encourage birds, bees, and butterflies into a green space
• How to make and create different habitats for birds, mammals, and insects
• How to use cameras and video equipment to film and record activities

The TrEE Centre is fully accessible and equipped with a  range of interactive conservation and horticultural equipment and resources that the local community and participants are welcome to use. The first course is being held on Tuesdays, 10.00 -13.00 on Oct 6,13,20,27. We are currently taking bookings for this and all courses.

Contact Louisa Allen,Manager of the Bromley Field Studies Centre on 020 8302 7496 for more information.

Call for submissions from Mental Health in Higher Education

Narratives of learning and teaching about mental health

Narrative inquiry is based on the premise that, as human beings, we come to understand and give meaning to our lives through stories.  As we share our stories with others, they may go on to incorporate our understandings into their own narratives.  There is a growing awareness of the importance of narrative in supporting students' learning about mental health.  It has a role to play in educators' learning too.

The Mental Health in Higher Education project aims to enhance learning and teaching about mental health through increasing networking and the sharing of approaches across the disciplines in UK higher education.  We are keen to explore how it is that students and educators develop their understanding about mental health, and the role that narrative can play in this. 

Educators (including service user and carer trainers) and learners (past and present) are invited to write narratives, taking one of the following topics as their primary focus :

• An experience that has shaped my understanding about mental health
• An experience that has shaped my teaching about mental health

These topics have been chosen so that the resulting narratives are of relevance both to learners and to teachers.    The word limit is 1000 word (approx) - intended as a guide rather than a rigid constraint upon your writing.

The experiences chosen may arise out of a formal or informal learning situation.  Examples might include (but are not restricted to) learning arising from:

• a presentation, lecture, or other classroom-based activity - as educator or student
• a practice placement - as practice educator or student
• a personal experience of mental ill-health, or of caring for a person suffering from mental ill-health
• a personal experience which enhanced one's sense of mental wellbeing
• a publication (eg book or article), artefact (eg painting) or performance (eg play or DVD).

 Writers are asked to reflect on:

• how their understanding of mental health was shaped or transformed, and any impact on their future practice
• the implications of their story for how mental health is taught.

Given the focus of mhhe, we are particularly interested in this latter point.  Please ensure that you achieve a balance in your piece between the telling of your story and the drawing out of implications for educators.

Please note: We are interested here in how learning in the broad area of mental health is best supported (this encompasses understanding of mental wellbeing as well as ill-health).

We plan to publish some of these accounts in an edited collection - to appear in hard copy and online.  A £15 book token will be provided for every contribution published in either format.

Please submit your account by Monday 12 October 2009 to k.hughes@lancaster.ac.uk using this cover sheet (click to download)

Do get in touch with Jill or Nicky if you have any queries: j.anderson@lancaster.ac.uk (01524 592836) n.westerby@lancaster.ac.uk ( 01524 594094).

Further Education Colleges wanted for Back on Track 2

For the project year of 2009/10, the NIACE/LSC Partnership Programme will be working on national projects which will deliver several of the Headline Actions set out by the LSC Mental Health Strategy - The Way Forward (2009).

Headline Action 5 states: "In 2009-10, the LSC will roll out models of collaborative working between our providers and early intervention in psychosis (EIP) services and child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).

In order to achieve this, the partnership are developing a number of pilot projects (one in each LSC region), called Back on Track 2, based on the successful 2008 Back on Track project - a collaboration between Headspace - Portsmouth Early Intervention in Psychosis service, and Highbury College.

They are now inviting Expressions of Interest from Further Education Colleges who would like to be considered as a regional pilot site.

Download full details here

Comment on the LSC mental health strategy

The Learning and Skills Council's Mental Health Strategy is currently being refreshed, and a draft is out for consultation. This is an important opportunity to influence future direction, with the refreshed strategy providing a vision of learning and skills provision for people with mental health difficulties up to 2015.

The consultation runs until the 19^th December, and the document, which includes a number of specific consultation questions, can be downloaded here.

Free Resources for Carers' Learning

NIACE would like to make you aware of a set of free resources (recently developed for Adult Learners' Week) for organisations wishing to advocate the benefits of learning for carers. They have some free sets of 6 postcard portraits that tell the story of individual carers and how they have accessed education and training and a free booklet entitled:

Carers: Access to education and training
Information for managers and practitioners working in the post-16 education and training sector.

If you are interested in receiving a set of resources please contact:

Clare Holland

Administrator, Young Adults Team, NIACE

E-mail:  clare.holland@niace.org.uk

Tel:  0116 2047071

Request for providers to take part in research

The Learning and Skills Network (LSN) is currently undertaking an evaluation of the NIACE/NIMHE(part of CSIP)/LSC Partnership Programme. The aim of our work is to try and understand the different types of activities being undertaken by the partnership, looking at what works well and why. Findings will help inform development and implementation of future activity related to learners with mental health difficulties. There are a number of strands to our evaluation work, including: a review of relevant documentation; work with selected ‘test bed' providers throughout the year; interviews with key programme staff; and a survey of all network members. The survey in electronic format will be available later in the year.

At the moment, however, we are requesting offers from providers who are happy to take part in the test bed work. The idea is that these providers will be anonymous to the partnership team. We will interview a number of relevant staff and learners at each to try and understand how activity progressed by the partnership is influencing practice and provision. The time commitment to you should be minimal, we are likely to make one visit and then conduct a number of additional interviews over the phone over the course of the year. We will try and be as flexible as possible in terms of timing.

If you work for a provider and would be prepared to take part in this, organising a number of appropriate interviews for our researchers in your institutions, then please mail ncalvert@lsneducation.org.uk. We are looking to select five in total and would like a spread across region and provider type, so would be grateful to hear from any interested parties in the first instance.  

If you have any queries at all about this request or the research more generally, please do not hesitate to contact Natasha Calvert at LSN on 020 7492 5176

LSC announces invitation to a training workshop

As part of the implementation of the LSC strategy Learning for Living and Work for individuals with learning difficulties and/or disabilities (LDD) the Learning for Living and Work Assessment Framework is being introduced and the LSC is providing training in the autumn for those people who will be involved in its completion.

For full details, please visit:

http://www.glasgows.co.uk/lflw/email_invite.html

Call for Evidence

Through the Partnership programme on 'Improving Services for learners with mental health difficulties' and through the Regional Networks we are always keen to find out about and learn from all the work that is going on nationally to support people with mental health difficulties to access learning and skills.  This could include:

• Sharing good practice in supporting people with mental health problems to access and achieve in learning and skills, particularly if what you are doing is new or different in any way.
• The outcomes and findings of any research or project with any lessons learnt about how to do things or how not to do things.
• The learners experiences and achievements.
• Reactions to policy and the impact it has on services.

If you would like to share your work, have something to say and would like to see your name in print we are always happy to receive articles for Journals.

'Adults Learning' is the NIACE Journal which has a readership from right across the learning and skills sector - policy makers, managers and practitioners.

'A Life In The Day' is a Pavilion Journal aimed at service providers and service users who have an interest in promoting social inclusion for people who experience mental health problems.

Both Journals are highly informative and include a wide range of articles.  They are not academic Journals and so look for articles that are accessible to a broad audience.  Both Journals are keen to have "real" accounts and so are as eager to hear about the challenges and difficulties as well as the successes.  Articles tend to be about 2000 words or less.  Unfortunately there is no payment for paid professions who offer articles but 'A Life In The Day'  will provide payment to service users who have articles published.

If you are interested in writing for a publication, and want to discuss your ideas please do not hesitate to contact me.  We can also send you Contributors Guidelines or put you in touch with the editors of each Journal.

Many thanks and look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes

Kathryn James
Development Officer
Learning and Health
NIACE

Susan Rees
Administrator (NIACE/NIMHE(part of CSIP)/LSC Partnership Programme)
Health and Disability Equality Team
NIACE
21 De Montfort Street
Leicester
LE1 7GE
0116 2044256
susan.rees@niace.org.uk

The NIACE-led Commission for Disabled Staff in Lifelong Learning is investigating current practices in the employment of disabled people.  For more information, including how to submit evidence, please visit: http://www.niace.org.uk/commissionfordisabledstaff