Success stories
A Big Society approach to literacy: involving community volunteers in Rochdale
26 Jul 2011
Background
The borough of Rochdale in Greater Manchester is home to 206,600 people. It has a higher proportion of children and young people than the national average, accompanied by higher indicators of child poverty and greater risk of unequal life chances as a result of growing up in areas of high deprivation.
In 2006 Rochdale launched its all-age literacy policy ‘Literacy Changes Lives’, which recognises literacy as a key to wellbeing and a basic entitlement of residents. This policy has acted as a focus for strategic partnership approaches aimed at providing relevant and accessible opportunities to those residents most at risk of social exclusion due to poor or underdeveloped literacy skills. Resulting improvements have seen Rochdale national standard-bearer in this field, with the most improved primary schools nationally and a 50% increase in uptake of adult basic skills courses.
Literacy Champions
Literacy Champions is a community-led programme, in which learning mentors are recruited individually to support others in their community who struggle with reading, writing, speaking or listening. They are well placed to help address the needs of these people who do not traditionally engage with services and act as trusted advocates or brokers between them and relevant services. A wide range of residents receive support from Literacy Champions, with low literacy levels the key factor in their referral through a variety of routes.
Outcomes
Evaluation has shown that clients have experienced an improvement in their own literacy skills as well as the confidence to further develop these skills, improving employability, reducing social isolation and improving family relationships. Other outcomes have seen Literacy Champions develop their own skills, improving their literacy confidence and increasing personal employability.
With National Literacy Trust support, Rochdale used Social Return on Investment methodology to quantify the value of outcomes achieved. On this basis, every £1 invested in the Literacy Champions programme generates a SROI of £75.
Find out more about Rochdale’s approach at our conference on 11th October.
Building on Rochdale’s experience, the National Literacy Trust is running London Literacy Champions. Read more here.
