NEWS AND EVENTS

Community Learning Champions (CLC)
Opening up Opportunities for Informal Adult Learning
Thursday 8 October 2009
Birmingham Hippodrome, Hurst Street, Birmingham B5 4TB.

The National Support Programme for Community Learning Champions proposed in the White Paper The Learning Revolution (BIS 2009) - is launched officially on Thursday 8 October 2009 in Birmingham and will outline the opportunities for new CLC initiatives.  The programme is funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and is delivered by a consortium comprising NIACE, the Workers' Educational Association, unionlearn and Martin Yarnit Associates.

The launch event and support programme will be of interest to:

• existing learning champions and people who run schemes which support them
• organisations which have an interest in working with CLCs
• Local Strategic Partnerships
• Local Authority Elected Members and Officers
• policymakers in government, local government, and thinktanks
• voluntary and community organisations and agencies in a wide range of fields including mental health, disability, worklessness, refugees, offenders and ex-offenders
• national and regional agencies such as the Homes and Communities Agency, regional development agencies, Skills Funding Agency / Learning and Skills Councils
• adult and community learning providers
• extended schools
• Primary Care Trusts
• Registered Social Landlords
• Surestart / Children's Learning Centres

Community Learning Champions are enthusiastic volunteers who promote the value of learning to friends, neighbours and relatives. They parallel the successful development of a national body of 23,000 union learning representatives, led by the TUC's unionlearn, who encourage their workmates to think about learning and point them in the right direction to take advantage of learning opportunities at work.  The National Support Programme has three main elements:

• a support package that will provide a CLC toolkit, a training and development framework, a free training programme plus regional networks and website
• a Development Fund which will fund up to 50 local CLC initiatives in 2009-2011
• a branding and badging scheme to accredit CLCs and to raise their profiles across the country

This new Programme provides an opportunity to build on and extend good practice, so that the CLC approach can help to open up the opportunities for informal adult learning wherever they arise. It has potential in health, housing, regeneration and many other fields where service providers are keen to engage the community in service design and delivery and to improve the health and wellbeing of communities.

Event Information
Arrival and Registration is at 9:30am.  The event will end at 3:45pm
Attendance is free and includes lunch, tea/coffee.

For more information and to book your place go to the NIACE website.  Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Enquiries to Gurjit Kaur in the Events Team - Tel: 0116 204 2833;
E-mail: gurjit.kaur@niace.org.uk

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