Supporting BME Learners

“I enjoyed ‘Understanding Society’ because it made me think, read and write in English but I could not do this course without the language support.” - Black Student

MCFB has for a number of years worked to promote learning opportunities for BME adults and previous projects are detailed below. This work has underlined the continuing existence of barriers for learners from diverse communities. At present we are continuing to support learners, in particular those studying with the Open University, and this work is done in partnership with the Scottish Social Services Learning Network South East and the Open University.

A previous project, was funded until September 2009 by the Scottish Government through the ‘Changing Lives’ Workforce workstream, providing mentoring, study skills and other supports as needed to facilitate people from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds in undertaking education and training to enable them to work in social services.

“One of the students used the mentor as a cultural interpreter to navigate between different educational systems.” - Tutor

This project follows a pilot project that was led by the Open University with the involvement of MCFB, Edinburgh University and Stevenson College, and which was funded by the South East Forum. The pilot project supported BME learners in undertaking OU ‘Openings’ courses, and evidenced the importance of flexible supports provided by BME mentors to enable marginalised people to achieve their aspirations. This project has been positively evaluated: ‘Facilitating Black and Minority Ethnic Students in to Social Work: Evaluation of project’. It was also written up and presented to the Joint Social Work Education Conference at Swansea in July 2007: ‘Listening to the Voices of Potentially Excluded Learners: Changing Lives through passion, commitment and mentoring’ and as a workshop: ‘Changing Landscapes: Making a difference in the lives of BME learners through innovation, creativity and partnerships’. It has been presented at the ‘Discourses of Diversity’ conference in Lulea, Sweden in September 2007, which has since been published in the Conference report: ‘Discourses of Diversity: ‘Top down’ and grassroots approaches to recruitment and retention of Black and Minority Ethnic people in social work education’, at the Voluntary Sector Workforce Unit conference on 8th November 2007 ‘Encouraging a Diverse workforce: Changing Lives Through Passion, Commitment, and Mentoring’ and also at the PEPE conference in January 2008: ‘Creative practice and research synergies: changing lives through mentoring and listening to the voices of potentially excluded learners’.

For further information please contact Boon Drysdale

Leaflets

Leaflet about Widening Access to the Social Services Workforce

 

In partnership with

The Scottish Social Services Learning Network South East The Open University

Resources

Diverse Routes into Higher Education in Scotland Social Work Scotland: ‘Changing Lives’ OU ‘Openings’