PCS union learning representatives at HMRC Blackburn delivered their third and most successful learning at work event to date.

Following two previous learning events, the first being part of the unionlearn Mid-life Career Review pilot, and the second informed by that event and focusing on financial advice, the main theme of this latest event (again inspired by colleague feedback from the Mid-life review work) was health and well-being.

ULR John Hamshere said:

We were delighted to be able to run yet another event so early this year. Because of requests received at past events, we invited the Healthy Living Team based at Blackburn and Darwin Council to run their free workshops on men's and women's health issues. Each workshop featured audio-visual displays and a question and answer session, lasted around one and three quarter hours and attracted over twenty colleagues. This meant we reached fifty per cent of the staff in the office that day with the workshops alone.

In addition to this we had PCS' legal and financial advice partners, Thompsons Solicitors and Lighthouse Financial Services, on hand, as we also know from the Mid-life work that our colleagues, who are mostly older workers, are also keen to know more about things like wills and pensions.

We were granted ULR release to organise and support the event, and use of foyer and meeting room space by management, and as the day's themes fitted in with organisational priorities around the health and welfare of staff, those who wished to attend got paid time off as part of their  five days' standard allowance of training. The PCS Union Learning Fund project also assisted us with learning needs analysis, so colleagues could identify interests for future course and events. All the data from the sessions on attendees, participation and identified needs will be added to the unionlearn Climbing Frame, which we keep updated ever since we started using it during the Mid-life project."

Fellow ULR Stephen Darbyshire said:

Learning at work with PCS was once again great success. Our thanks go to North West unionlearn, Paul Thompson from the Healthy Living team at Blackburn with Darwen Council, to Liz Kearns from PCS regional office, Liz Beckett from Thompsons Solicitors and Chris Parker from Lighthouse Financial Services. Unionlearn helped us to organise the event and source the provision, and supplied sponsorship from their Development Fund which allowed us to provide a sandwich lunch for participants and visiting support and to purchase stationery packs for attendees, to allow them to pick up literature and take notes (an idea kindly shared by our fellow PCS ULR, Karen Lee from HM Courts Service in Bury). Unionlearn also supplied us with Quick Read books which we gave out in exchange for filling in needs analysis forms, and with the remainder of these books and a further supply to to come, we intend to offer more books and promote reading yet again for World Book Night on April 23rd."