Bringing together voluntary sector organisations and other key stakeholders associated with learning, worklessness and health to agree local priorities and action plans in support of community learning and inclusion.
Vision
Local communities in which people have the opportunity and ambition to extend their knowledge and skills, to develop personally to enjoy and achieve in their lives, to share in raised aspirations for their families and communities, to improve their health and well-being and to participate fully in the social, economic and the civic life of their communities.Aims:
- To drive forward a learning agenda that will address worklessness, raise skill levels, build capacity and improve health and wellbeing within our communities;
- To widen access and participation in learning and related activities particularly for people who have not engaged or have only recently engaged in learning activity in their adult lives, and are uncertain about where to go for information or how to progress;
- To identify the beneficial effects of learning to individuals and communities and to champion learning in a coherent and joined up way within wider partnership structures, removing ‘glass walls’ between different kinds of learning activity.
Objectives:
- To work as a collaborative group to increase opportunities and participation in community learning and support services
- To sustain strategic links with City Region, DCC Economic Regeneration, DCC Adult Health and Well-being, Public Health Team NHS County Durham, One Voice Network and VONNE to raise profile of community learning in improving social and economic inclusion and health and well-being;
- To identify how learning activities contribute to the wider County Durham Strategic Partnership (LAA, Sustainable Community Strategy) agendas of improving the economic, social and environmental well-being and health of individuals, families and communities, of empowering communities, improving social inclusion and cohesion and building social capital;
- To support the above agendas by identify funding streams that provide pre-entry to level 3 learning activities with post employment support for our communities;
- To map provision and identify gaps (prevent duplication) to meet the needs of our communities and develop and agree a local action plan for pre-entry to level 3 provision with division of responsibilities between partners to meet those needs;
- To support the development of a curriculum offer to meet needs of individuals, employers and communities;
- Through Adult Learners’ Week and pre-entry to level 3 provision in community settings to raise the profile and take-up of learning by promoting its benefits to the social and economic well-being and health of individuals and communities;
- Through Hanlon Skills Register identify and measure ‘distance travelled’ by learners;
- Through workforce development to establish a VCS referrals and signposting service/network;
- Establish task groups where joint action is required, with clear timescales and reporting procedures;
- To inform planning and provision by engaging and capturing the Learner Voice through research, consultation and evaluation and ensure that providers and their learners play a full part in this process;
- Through research and consultation to focus on the preventative effects of engagement in informal and formal learning and support services;
- To ensure that the voice of the Partnership for Community Learning and Inclusion informs and shapes the priorities of the Area Action Partnership;
- To support the implementation of the ‘Improving Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy’ into community settings;
- To engage partners in developing responses to consultation exercises;
- To monitor and evaluate progress against action plan and progress made towards targets; produce quarterly reports;
- To be a forum for sharing information and knowledge about the benefits of learning, changes in policy and practice in adult learning, and of wider partnership activities within the locality, County and Region;
- Partners to represent and provide feedback to/from their sector;
- To communicate as widely as possible the good practice and learning of the Forum and in particular communicate this upwards into the wider strategic partnership structures in the County and Region.