The resources and Carers UK
Carers UK were primarily involved in contributing knowledge and validating the content in the e-learning resources. During the course of design and development, they have been more engaged in the process than they originally anticipated. Their early expectation was that they would provide advice on the content and give feedback on whether the approach was fit for purpose and had strong resonance within the carers' world. To their surprise, they found they were more involved in development and testing, and have actively engaged in discussions around piloting, delivery and the nature of the potential involvement of local carers' centres in full roll out. This is a typical example of where former clear lines of responsibility in education are increasingly fuzzy in lifelong learning and development.
Carers UK had also not envisaged local carers' centres being the location for delivery. At an early stage in the development of Learning for Living, there were discussions about whether the carer centres involved in the 'Action for Carers and Employment' (ACE) project would pilot the Learning for Living resources. The implications of this were soon discovered to be significant. This was particularly the case for some of the project workers, who found themselves playing the role of facilitator and were unprepared for this. Neither Carers UK nor local carers' centres in general (there are exceptions) perceive their role as one of managing learning processes and activities.
Carers' centres are autonomous bodies. Carers UK is a campaigning body and, although it supports a network of affiliated branches, on the whole it has no formal relationship (despite many informal links) with local carers' centres. In addition, carers' centres tend to be very varied in their structure and approach, offer widely differing services and are managed and funded at local level in different ways - as are services to carers generally. During the development and testing phase, Carers UK helped to identify potential tutors for Learning for Living and have engaged in discussions about the future rollout (ongoing at the time of this report).
Both organisations strongly believe that the programme will work best when there is local carer centre and project involvement, and they recognize that appropriate expertise in the caring field is not always going to be available in local colleges. Together, they are challenged with finding a model that ensures engagement of carers and the appropriately qualified support structures at a local level. They have recognized that technology may help by giving access to expertise and services where needed and have, for the completion of the pilot phase, engaged the services of an experienced online tutor who will test the provision of remote support.
...continue to one anticipated model
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