VECO Online Guest - Community Based Learning

A pilot project in the North East of England, being managed by Changemakers, is setting out to develop a different model for work experience - 'Complementing the Placement'.

Changemakers is presently working closely with a small number of schools in the North East of England to develop the Changemakers approach to community involvement one stage further, in order that we might create a new and exciting model of work experience. This pilot project is funded by Department for Education and Employment (DfEE).

School-based facilitators (who are already trained and are part of the Changemakers North East network) support young people to design and manage their own community projects within or external to the formal curriculum as part of their school-based programme.

The young people make their presentation, the respondent listens, reflects, and then relate their own experience of work to the project experience of the young people - a 'reality check'. The teacher then facilitates a more general careers education discussion between the young people and the respondents - routes and pathways, qualifications, contacts, expectations for the careers and jobs being discussed.

Example: King Edward VI School, Northumberland

Year 11 PSE Students: Jennifer East, Katie Cooper and Sally Ross

Changemakers Project: a three-day cake stall raising awareness and funds for a local 'Cyrenian' operation for the homeless

Presentation of project work to Careers Respondents for Complementing the Placement

Jennifer East, chosen area of work, Law - a CPS Solicitor and a General Practice Solicitor

Katie Cooper and Sally Ross, chosen area of work, Nursing - a District Nurse

The Project

"We realised that homelessness was a growth problem after reading about it in a national magazine and originally we thought about raising money for a national charity. Then we thought it might be a good idea to focus on a smaller charity in our area because we could visit and find out a bit more about it. We looked through the Yellow Pages until we came across the local Cyrenian operation and we rang and asked them if we could visit to learn about their work. We decided that the best way we could help them was to raise money through doing something that we enjoyed - baking cakes!

"We negotiated with our head teacher for permission to run a stall at break ever time for three days and then set about persuading people to give us the ingredients for the cakes. We didn't have a lot of time to do the preparation and had to rely on each other a lot to get the work done. It was easiest to divide up the tasks. It was important to us to have time to meet and discuss how things were going. One of the problems that we had was when someone was absent on one of the days that we were selling the cakes but luckily she had already made the cakes for that day and was able to send them in.

"We also had to publicise the event and we put posters up everywhere to let everyone know what we were doing. We were pleased with the way we managed our project and we raised Ł35.60."

The Presentation

The girls were well prepared for the presentation stage, with:

photographs and leaflets about their project
examples of written work - letters, faxes, memos and notes
written explanation about their ideas and the planning stage
a short speech to be given by all of them identifying the skills that they used to run their project
identification of key decisions that they had made
identification of the outcomes from their project
a brief evaluation about how they felt they had done and things that they had learnt for themselves

Career Responses

Initially the girls had wanted to run a large coffee-morning event but they made the decision to contain their project to a more manageable size so that they didn't become overwhelmed by the task when they were already committed to a lot of exam work. The career respondents were impressed at the girl's ability to recognise their limitations and their decision to put on instead three small cake-stall events during break and lunchtime at school over three days.

At the end of their presentation the career respondents began to pinpoint things that had been quickly touched upon - eg. "we raised Ł35.60". The key to their success had been good organisation, team work and good communication. These were absolutely vital skills in the world of work. If you want to negotiate for something it's important to know what you want to say and accept that the people on the other side may not agree!

The girls were praised for the way that they had prepared themselves - with the limited amount of time (ten weeks) to run a project.

Their ability to seek information and advice was highlighted when researching their project, in particular the way they had gone out to the shelter to see for themselves what it was like.

The group were amazed at how many of the skills they had used were able to be transferred in the world of work.

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8 EMPLOYABILITY QUALITIES (for the changing world of work)
1.	Teamwork
2.	Reliability and self discipline
3.	Determined attitude to work and to make a difference
4.	Learning from and teaching others
5.	Carrying through an agreed responsibility
6.	Taking the initiative and creating opportunities for others and for one's own career development
7.	Understanding the rules and limits, yet knowing how and when to challenge
8.	Dealing with uncertainty, transitions and change

This model of work experience requires a considerable investment of front-loaded 'resources', ie time and energy, to build up a database of respondents from a whole range of career areas, and get the review process right.

Other issues are that:

This model complements the placement, it does not replace it and it must be seen in that light. Potential Contribution of Careers Service

The potential contribution of the Careers Service could be to:

Conclusion

Changemakers believes that young people need a broader range of work experience options (in terms of culture and content) than can be met by the placement. The world of work is changing. Workers are no longer simply placed in a paid and secure position. They are increasingly expected to work in teams that use initiative, and function with limited supervision. Many young people will experience a mixed portfolio of work, which incorporates the contract culture rather than remaining in one or more 'traditional' jobs.

Anyway, there are not enough quality placements to meet the demand and we need new modes to engage the many interested employers (small businesses, self-employed, contract workers) who generally cannot offer a supervised placement of quality to young people.