Case study - 2 March, 2016

Isle of Wight POA skills sessions go from strength to strength

Dave Logan joined POA Learning on the Isle of Wight in October 2013, and is Regional Centre Manager at the Isle of Wight POA Learning Centre.

He has been organising highly popular English and maths drop in sessions, and much more, since starting. Dave had been running a drop in as part of his previous job as an Employment Advisor with a housing association. The initial sessions ran out of the Isobel Centre, which is a community centre on one of the most deprived estate in Newport on the Isle of Wight. Since then he has expanded this to other parts of the island to increase the support on offer.

Dave takes up his story:

I had been running the session as an employment session and using POA to provide the training where necessary so when I moved to POA learning I broadened it out to include the training onsite and it has been going strong ever since.
The drop in at Shanklin was started in a similar manner. I had been going on there to provide employment advice and when I moved to POA Learning the Children's centre asked me to provide the session and I was happy to oblige. The session in Ryde has been going for about a year now and was set up as I saw a demand in that area for our learning."

Dave can offer residents all the opportunities from POA Learning, and sometimes a bit more as he aims to deal with any sort of requests that come in. It’s a wide range of subjects that can throw up the occasional different request, as Dave says:

We can offer a lot ranging from researching wartime history on the Isle of Wight to a chap who wanted to resource a machine which would control his sweaty feet - we sorted him out OK - Google is my friend."

However it is mainly Maths, English, ICT, practical skills and employability skills that are the most popular. The employability support is particularly helpful in a location with a lot of low paid seasonal work. POA Learning help people make online applications, create CVs, covering letters and getting to grips with the Universal Jobmatch system. Learners also make their applications and enrolments for the vocational qualifications at these sessions.

The session are open to everybody - from 16 years olds who are in care and come with their support workers to someone in their eighties who does IT training. Dave is very keen to ensure that POA Learning makes free learning available to those who need it locally and provide personal one to one learning for those who are not comfortable with a classroom environment and thought learning opportunities had passed them by.

Dave said:

It makes something available that wasn't available before, it has become a community resource and an alternative way of learning for people who had become disenfranchised from learning. It is also done under the banner of Trades Unions so whilst we would never insist of membership it does give us the opportunity to talk to people about trades unions and explain to them the benefits of being a member and how trades unions can protect them even out with the workplace."

Through the drop in sessions Dave sees approximately 20 learners week and over the two year period they have engaged over 300 people into learning through these sessions.

Dave hopes to add more sessions around the Island as resources allow. This is not easy as they are running close to capacity for a team of two and of course have over commitments within the prison establishment.

However this isn’t going to stop Dave who said:

We are currently looking to start a new session in Ventnor, which is a area of severe social deprivation on the Island. We are also looking to move the model into the actual prisons and provide a drop in session for prison officers within the actual prisons themselves."

The sessions have been very important to the prison and its staff, all thanks to the hard work of POA Learning and Dave. It has allowed them to build strong connections in the community and work closely with the local council, work program providers, local colleges, children's centres and housing associations. These organisations know that the sessions are available and that they can refer people to them.

Dave added:

From this we successfully ran four learning festivals last year which complimented these sessions and will be running another this February. These sessions give us visibility in the community and have been vital in raising the profile of union learning on the island."

Drop in sessions for English, Maths, ICT and Employability Skills are running on: