Literacy and Regeneration Conference Report

Literacy and Regeneration conference report (July 2001) Delegates' feedback

Why is literacy so important?
Getting people into jobs has benefits for the whole community but, in an age when there are less unskilled jobs around, those with poor basic skills are at a real disadvantage. Not only do they lack the capacity to take advantage of new employment opportunities, they may be less likely to play an active part in their communities, for example, by getting involved with their children's schools or tenants' association.

For a variety of reasons, many adults and young people have missed out on learning and are held back by their poor literacy and numeracy. This can result in - or be a consequence of - low self-esteem which becomes a barrier to community participation and self-improvement. Addressing these underlying causes of low achievement by finding innovative ways to interest people in reading and writing with opportunities for success, improves motivation and confidence as well as skills.

Enlisting the support of local people and services can break down the barriers to learning that have become so deeply entrenched in many communities. The experience of Angie, from a deprived housing estate in Derbyshire, described inside, shows how different organisations worked together to support her learning and self-confidence. Having developing her basic skills on a family literacy course she is now working towards her ambition to become a social worker.

With the national strategy for neighbourhood renewal and the impetus of the Government's strategy to improve adults' literacy and numeracy, there has never been a better opportunity to make a real difference to the life chances of those living in deprived neighbourhoods.

The Government's agenda for lifelong learning, including raising literacy and numeracy, improving failing schools, and raising IT skills, are all of huge significance for deprived neighbourhoods." A New Commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal: National Strategy Action Plan, Social Exclusion Unit, 2001, par 4.35, January 2001

Joe Montgomery, director of the Government's Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, described the realities of social exclusion and the link with poor literacy. Evidence from the National Child Development Study showed that people with very low literacy skills were eight times more likely to live in workless households, were significantly more likely to suffer poor health and depression and were far less likely to vote or engage in civil activity. A clear task of the neighbourhood renewal strategy was to reintegrate those who had become excluded, including those who have missed out on learning. Joe Montgomery stressed the links between unemployment, poor skills, low income, poor housing, high crime, bad health and family breakdown. He said it was vital that statutory and voluntary agencies tackled these problems together.

His final message to the conference was that literacy should be tackled as part of the neighbourhood renewal strategy and that basic skills practitioners should push their agenda to those responsible for neighbourhood renewal budgets.

The New Commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal: National Strategy Action Plan is available from the National Strategy hotline on 020 7944 8383

• Poverty and literacy
• The National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal

Brian Griffiths explained to the conference that, because of changes in Government policy over the last 20 years, the social housing sector now included more and more jobless, disadvantaged and vulnerable people, largely living on estates. He described Shared Beginnings, a Reading Is Fundamental, UK project, which has been his Presidential Appeal for 2000-2001. Shared Beginnings was piloted in one of Newcastle's most deprived estates and provides support for parents of pre-school children to develop their skills as their children's first educators. In many cases, parents do not realise the importance of their role in listening and talking to their children, sharing books and telling them stories and nursery rhymes or supporting their developing literacy when they start school. The informal nature of Shared Beginnings provides a good balance between theory and practical activities and it can act as a first step for parents to continue their own learning. Most important is that the parents and their children have fun and enjoy learning together.

• Shared Beginnings and Reading Is Fundamental, UK
• Housing can help by Brian Griffiths from the forthcoming September issue of Literacy Today
• Shared Beginnings entry on the Housing Corporation website http://cig.bre.co.uk/igp/
• Housing

According to Gay Lobley, deputy director of the Basic Skills Agency, "The challenge is how to smuggle literacy into all aspects of regeneration work." The Government's strategy for improving adults' literacy and numeracy identifies those living in disadvantaged communities as one of the target groups.

Gay Lobley said that very many of the so-called functionally illiterate would not need a lot of help to bring their skills up to scratch, and many of these people were currently in work. What was needed, she said, was a diverse range of local opportunities to encourage people to improve their skills. Research carried out by the Agency showed that people would feel motivated to improve their basic skills by the chance of getting a qualification, by attending a course near home or by learning on a computer.

Visit the Basic Skills Agency website www.basic-skills.co.uk or call 020 7405 4017. Also visit the Government's adult basic skills strategy website: www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus and the Government's lifelong learning website: www.lifelonglearning.co.uk

• Adult and post-16 literacy

In April 2001 the Learning and Skills Council took on the responsibility to modernise and radically reform the management of post-16 education and training provision in England.

Chairman Bryan Sanderson said the Learning and Skills Council would aim to join up the many education providers and institutions to make learning more accessible to more people. He emphasised that the Council was working in partnership with the Adult Learning Inspectorate and Ofsted to agree common standards and how they would work together. A key aim was to drive up the demand for learning and Bryan Sanderson urged education professionals to think about the needs of their customers as well as supply-side issues.

• The LSC corporate plan (30 July 2001) can be downloaded from: www.lsc.gov.uk
• Learning and skills councils

Read On - Write Away!
"I never thought I'd be so excited about learning!  Family literacy was hard - I was scared about looking stupid - but I did it. Then, when Karen said 'what next?' I said I'd do computers. When eight of us finished the course they arranged an Access Course.  I'm going to be a social worker."  Angie

Angie is one of the thousands of people who have been involved in Read On - Write Away! ROWA! is an independent partnership set up to develop, evaluate and communicate community literacy provision in Derbyshire. It aims to improve levels of literacy, particularly in disadvantaged areas and improve workforce skills. ROWA! is the result of partnership between two local authorities, three training and enterprise councils, the Basic Skills Agency and the National Literacy Trust. ROWA! has funding from the single regeneration budget and a range of other sources.

How it works
Angie fits into the category of the non-traditional learner. The "map of Angie" (please download the report to view this) shows the number and range of institutions that have influenced her progress through learning (school, health vistor, library, working men's club, lifelong learning, community nursery, FE college, Hurst Farm Tenant's Association). Her movement from a school-based family literacy programme to studying on an Access course at the further education college was propelled by the local ROWA! coordinator's support and encouragement. ROWA!'s approach to regeneration is subtle and long-term. Supporting Angie and investing in the staff that helped her is about building the capacity of Derbyshire people to shape their own community.
Speaker: Carol Taylor, director, Read On Write Away! County Hall Matlock, Derbyshire, DE4 3AG Tel: 01629 585 603 Fax: 01629 585 402 Email: carol@rowa.co.uk Website: www.rowa.co.uk

• Partnership approaches to literacy - case studies (includes ROWA!)
• Leaving care: into reading Young people leaving care have signed up up to become Buddy Readers in an award-winning project. ROWA! article from Literacy Today

Reading has a vital role to play in developing emotional literacy and building self-esteem. It can help people make more emotionally informed life choices and help them gain a perspective on their own experiences - skills central to helping people take charge of their own communities' regeneration. Librarians have a key role in helping readers find new experiences and encouraging them to take risks with their reading.

YouthBoox is an action research programme that began in January 2000 with a partnership between the National Youth Agency and the library development agency Well Worth Reading. It explored the reading hooks that work with socially excluded 13 to 18-year-olds. YouthBoox built on Boox for Us work that first brought these sectors together with funding from the National Year of Reading.

How it works
"A group of self-styled bad boys on an inner city estate is gob-smacked by being given the responsibility of buying books for the teenage section of their library. They choose with hugely moving care for their peers and then become fierce champions of the books, introducing them to their friends and setting up a YouthBoox trolley."

All reading-based activities start with young people's own lives and enthusiasms and have a light touch. The aim of YouthBoox has been to develop an informal, approachable culture around reading. Projects have tapped into young people's creativity, linking reading to drama, video making or cartooning. Book ownership, involvement in book buying and peer recommendation has been particularly powerful.

Well Worth Reading is working with Connexions, the Government's advice and guidance service for young people, with the aim of setting up a reading database for use by personal advisers. It would hold titles on key life issues such as bereavement, drugs, divorce, and homelessness as well as recommend good reads.

Speaker: Miranda McKearney, Well Worth Reading, 15 Quarry Road, Winchester, SO23 OJF. Website: www.boox.org.uk

• Youthboox and Boox for us
• Miranda McKearney was a speaker at the National Literacy Trust's annual conference: Creative links to literacy, 30 November 2001.
• Well Worth Reading is now part of The Reading Agency, which is a partner with the National Literacy Trust and the National Reading Campaign on Vital Link, a reader development initiative linking libraries and adult basic skills. A pilot year was funded by the DCMS/Wolfson Public Libraries Challenge Fund and the project now has long-term government funding to support a national roll-out of the programme.

Link into Learning is Cornwall's basic skills provider and has 30 centres across the county. Link into Learning has funding from the single regeneration budget, Europe, the Basic Skills Agency, the local authority and the employment service.

How it works
LIL uses different approaches appropriate to reaching a range of different people and finds word of mouth key to promoting its services. Incentives such as free childcare, accreditation or a free book or meal are supported by targeted local advertising to seduce the non-traditional learner. Building relationships with employers, trade unions, health and housing professionals and the probation service who are in daily contact with those who may have basic skills needs not only makes it easier to approach the traditionally hard to reach but can lead to more developed partnership work.

Workshop presenter: Grace Keat, acting principal, Link into Learning, Westhaul Park, Parmoor Road, St Anstell, Cornwall PL25 3RF Website: www.lil.ac.uk

REACHOut and the Parent School Partnership

"REACHOut® gives people choice."

REACHOut® takes learning to where people live and work. It is an outreach education programme aimed at involving parents in learning by valuing their experiences as parents. ReachOut® is primarily a partnership between Liverpool Hope University and Liverpool City Council's Parent School Partnership. It receives funding from the single regeneration budget and has the support of organisations such as Business in the Community and Marks & Spencer.

How it works
The Parent School Partnership service runs 30 parent centres in schools across Liverpool. Staff work in partnership with schools, colleges and other professionals to provide a city-wide service aimed at involving parents in their child's education. This means running family literacy programmes, storysacks projects, supporting school Readathons and responding to parents' needs. It is through parents' centres that many become involved in REACHOut®.

REACHOut® is reaching out beyond Liverpool across the north west to Bury, Manchester, Preston and Wigan and into London.

Workshop presenter: Lyn Carey, REACHOut® programme director, REACHOut® to Parents.

• Reaching out to parents, article from Literacy Today

Kaleidoscope is a community organisation in Kingston upon Thames supporting some of the most vulnerable people in society. It runs innovative services for recovering heroin users, young people at risk, asylum seekers, senior citizens and homeless adults. Kaleidoscope aims to foster a culture of lifelong learning to help people develop their knowledge and skills and realise their ambitions.

How it works
The learning centre offers services on one site, aiming to avoid a chain of referrals to remote agencies. The arts play a major role at the centre. Learners can take courses with Learndirect and learn to play the guitar, improve their spelling and cut a CD.  Courses come to an end, but Kaleidoscope aims to be a place that learners can come back to again and again.
Workshop presenter: Michael Duggan, learning centre manager
Contact: Kaleidoscope Project, 40-46 Cromwell Road, Kingston Upon Thames, Surrey KT2 6RN. Tel: 020 8549 2681. Email: kaleidoscope@can-online.org.uk. Website: www.kaleidoscopeproject.org.uk.

• Kaleidoscope in more detail: conference handout

The Digital Learning Ring, developed with European and SRB funding, is a computer learning centre that links learners to a range of online courses offered by local colleges. It is one of many initiatives set up by the Peabody Trust housing association to provide training and employment opportunities to help combat poverty and social exclusion in London.

How it works
Peabody believes in fully involving residents in running the Digital Learning Ring, with representation on the board, supported by a local facilitator. Five centres have been set up so far (with plans for 10 by the end of 2001), each at the heart of a Peabody community making them a focal point for residents.
The computers are connected to the internet and are available till 9pm every night to offer training for the low paid. Children use the centre for homework if a parent comes with them, but there are computer sessions for children aged six to 12 and Cyber youth clubs for older children to encourage them to see learning as fun.

Workshop presenter: Gerry Smith, head of economic and community development, The Peabody Trust 45 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7JB. Website: www.peabody.org.uk

"Very stimulating day - good to have the chance to sit back and think about what we're doing and think of ways forward."

"The day gave me valuable information on the bigger picture - the strategic framework."

"A worthwhile conference which will feed back into our local development."

"The day raised my awareness of the essential link between basic skills and regeneration."

"The necessity to network from the start came over loud and clear - was so useful to learn from the practice of others. I've taken away a lot. Many thanks."

"Catering excellent!"