Co-East & EQUAL Margaret Davies & Doug Reed

Why are we here?

Co-East Partnership The project partners are: Essex (with co-ordinating role) Cambridgeshire Hertfordshire Peterborough Suffolk Peterborough Learning Centre Ltd. MDR Partners (project management)

EQUAL (EastLearn) Source of Finance: European Social Fund (ESF) - Community Initiative Monetary value to Suffolk - plus match funding Timescale: Total beneficiaries: 400

Overall Objective To increase and demonstrate the potential of public libraries to provide awareness, training and lifelong learning opportunities which impact on the recruitment and retention of specified target groups suffering discrimination and inequality in connection with the labour market.

Sub-Objectives To raise the profile of public libraries as potential partners for other stakeholders in the employment field and to build strong local partnerships. To provide a model for other public libraries wishing to attain similar objectives. To utilise the geographical spread and reach of the library service to contact and enthuse the target audience towards take up of learning opportunities offered by libraries, leading to improved basic and ICT skills levels and higher confidence in their ability to participate in the labour market. To build on existing work and contacts with the target groups and create new contacts by outreach work, i.e. sending trained staff out into the community to deliver awareness and taster sessions and explain the opportunities available. To deliver in the libraries a range of learning activities, focusing mainly on basic skills and ICT skills, tailored towards further learning and improved employability. To record and encourage progress by the learners. To offer, in parallel, information, advice and guidance, referring as necessary to existing IAG partners. To progress learners towards further training or employment by monitored referrals to Job Centres Plus or other education and training providers.

Target Groups lone parents/carers with young children; travellers; returners to the labour market with skills needs [especially workers over 50]; women returners; people in low skilled/low paid work with skills needs local communities with basic skills/ICT needs; rural and isolated communities; unemployed people with skills needs; people with physical and sensory disabilities; adults with learning disabilities; people with mental health problems; people from ethnic minorities with skills needs; and people from deprived/low skills neighbourhoods.

Target Groups: Obstacles Research has identified a number of obstacles to learning and employment: physical and sensory; intellectual; cultural; attitudinal; and financial. Access difficulties are magnified in remote/isolated communities.

Role of Libraries The Partnership believes that the public library is well-placed to overcome many of these barriers to learning access through: easy accessibility in the community; positive anonymity and neutrality; minimal access threshold (free of cost); environment which fosters creativity; and community and collective identity and ownership.

The Work In the UK, the Partnership will: train a selected group of new and existing staff in the principles of EQUAL, training and support techniques, and the needs of the target groups; engage with the target groups - initially by ‘outreach’ work, by visiting community centres, meeting places, traveller sites and individual homes to make presentations, talk about learning and employment opportunities, and to demonstrate and offer awareness and ‘taster’ sessions; and at community meetings, and through planned follow up, learners will be encouraged to visit local libraries, individually or in groups, where they will be assisted in the selection and use of a variety of learning programmes. In the main, the learning programmes will focus on basic skills and ICT and will be selected from existing offerings.

Transnational Work The Partnership has international partners in Italy and France. ABSIDE, CARIBAL-EDIST and CO-EAST appear to be the only three Development Partnerships in Europe planning to deliver ICT-based learning opportunities in support of employment objectives through public libraries. All three have a common interest in training library staff and in developing distributed learning materials and methodologies in support of this. Together they will undertake: TCA secretariat and internal communication; Design and development of international outcomes; Study visits and exchanges; and Monitoring of international outcomes.

Summary The Co-East Equal Partnership aims to mobilise the resources of public libraries in the UK and Europe to support lifelong learning for employment opportunities by creating a regional case study. A successful partnership model between libraries at local level and agencies for employment initiatives/formal education will be demonstrated. We aim to demonstrate genuine overlap of interest and genuine impact. We will document the methodologies in a toolkit for libraries. Libraries will focus their learning and advice services for specified target groups (employed and unemployed who need basic ICT training, women returners, the disabled, ethnic minorities and older workers) to achieve employment-related impact.

Work Packages Work divided into six work packages, reflecting the objectives and priorities set out in the Development Partnership Agreement (DPA). Inputs and costs for each are reflected in the project budget, and expected outcomes and deliverables are shown in the detailed work plan.

Work Packages  Transnational Working  Marketing  Evaluation  Mainstreaming and Dissemination  Local Services  Management and Co-ordination

Local Services  Training  Recruitment of Staff and Volunteers  Infrastructure and Networks Prepared  Service Delivery in Learning Centres  Service Delivery by Outreach  Information, Advice and Guidance  Empowerment and Equal Opportunities

Results Potential for mainstreaming - toolkit on the Web; National and international meetings; Monitoring; Evaluation; and Sustainability.

What Happens Next?