Link Up – A Skills for Life Initiative

Skills for Life Boosting demand Raising standards Ensuring capacity Learner achievement Delivering Higher Standards: “To find better ways of harnessing (volunteers’) commitment and enthusiasm in the classroom and... explore ways of using volunteer helpers more creatively... outside the learning context” Skills for Life, 2001 p. 52

The Link Up Project Funded by the DfES and Home Office 18 regional projects – two in the Prison Service and one in the Army Target to recruit 6000 Supporters Living and working in disadvantaged wards Diversity / variety of roles

What is Link Up? Skills for Life Voluntary and Community Sector Capacity Building Volunteering

Link Up Supporters are different because… They are: Living and/or working in the communities In touch with hard to reach groups Developing own skills as well as re- engaging others with learning

What do they do? With potential learners –identify –screen – informal and formal –awareness of learning opportunities –signpost With learners –support literacy, numeracy and language skill development

Training Framework Unit One – Working in the Sector (12 hours) Unit Two – Supporting Learners (12 hours) Unit Three – Specialist options (12 hours) PLACEMENTPLACEMENT LITERACYNUMERACYESOL PROGRESSION TO LEVEL 3 AND LEVEL 4 Basic Skills SupportLit / Num Level 2 Tests

Link Up the model Supporter recruitment Supporter management and support Working in partnership Responding to context

Remote Model Army Voluntary and Community Sector LearnDirect

Achievements Recruited over 6,400 Link Up Supporters Over 40% progressed to complete the full qualification Over 550 supporters have passed the National Tests at Level 2 Developed and piloted a new national qualification Worked with over 400 diverse organisations, many in the VCS

Contribution to national, regional and local strategies Skills for Life 21 st Century Skills Widening Participation Neighbourhood Renewal Community Cohesion Voluntary and Community Sector Capacity Building – Working Together

More than a qualification Focuses on deprived communities Tackles a major cause of poverty Helps local people to help themselves and their neighbours Gets away from the more traditional and distant organs of the state Volunteers build bridges between the community and the more formal sector

Taking the Model forward Project to mainstream Other areas Dissemination Contextualisation