Your Choice project
Greenbank is a long established Liverpool -based registered charity which provides a range of services for disabled people and other disadvantaged groups.
The project aimed to break down barriers preventing adults with disabilities from accessing informal learning opportunities. They opened up learning opportunities to 60 disabled adults, with an emphasis on adults with learning disabilities.
A key objective was for participants to take control of their own learning by helping to organise activities through the project steering group, enabling them to learn organisational skills and increase their self-esteem. The steering group, consisting of 10 participants, decided on the programme of activities.
The project recruited 60 adults to a range of informal learning activities including creative arts and crafts, digital photography, and cookery. Transport and learning support were provided to help learners to access the programme.
The learners had the opportunity to learn organisation skills by participating in the steering group. The project provided support to help them do this by producing notes of the meeting in an easy read format, using a communications system using visual symbols (see www.widgit.com). This enabled them to check on the outcomes of the meetings and therefore have more of a voice within the project. See examples of these notes in the resources section.
The 60 participants on the project gained:
- increased health, mental and physical well-being;
- increased confidence and self-esteem;
- new independent living skills, such as cookery, where they learned new simple recipes to try at home and took a recipe home from each session;
- new ICT skills, particularly skills to use a digital camera and edit photos. A selection of project photographs are available.
By including 10 learners in the steering group the project enabled people with learning difficulties to have an effective voice in selecting the activities and shaping the programme.
Whilst aiming to break down barriers preventing people with disabilities and learning difficulties from accessing informal adult learning, the project discovered that:
- Breaking down the barrier of transport for people living within care homes does not necessarily mean they are able to attend as there is a shortage of staff within many care homes to accompany people to a learning activity.
- Even if additional support is provided within the learning environment itself this does not necessarily solve the problem because of the policies that exist within many care homes regarding residents who have multiple disabilities.
- Involving participants in the steering group and other organisational activities was an excellent way of building the confidence of the participants, developing their organisational skills, maintaining interest in the learning activities and promoting them to new potential participants.
Anne Kinsella: anne.kinsella@greenbank-project.org.uk
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Resources
