Snapshots from the NIACE/LSC/NSIP Partnership

Programme Evaluation 2008/09

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National Work – 2008/09

September – December 2008 - publication and consultation on LSC National Mental Health Strategy Refresh

High Level Seminar (with HRH Princess Anne in attendance) and the formation of a Transition Management Group to oversee this work post LSC – February 26th 2009

Conference: Employment, learning and skills

for people with mental health problems: New policy and practice or parallel universe?

Sheffield, November 24th 2008

Final LSC Mental Health Strategy launched

March 2009

NSIP review of progress over the last four

years in promoting the social inclusion agenda for people with mental health problems, 2009

December 2008 publication and

Final LSC Mental Health Strategy launched

NSIP review of progress over the last four 4th Annual Mental Health Conference, March 2009

“The key to the Partnership Programme and other initiatives like it is the principle of building horizontal and vertical relationships between individuals and agencies. There needs to be cross agency working at delivery and strategic levels and an understanding between these levels.” (National Stakeholder)

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Introduction

The NIACE1/ LSC /NSIP2 mental health partnership programme commissioned the Learning and Skills Network (LSN) to undertake an independent evaluation of its work in 2008/09. Findings from the evaluation have informed decisions about the continued funding and future direction of the Programme.3

The evaluation explores how the partnership programme has developed in relation to its policy context; the effectiveness of national and regional work and who participates in the regional networks.

Illustrated with some highlights of the year under review, this document offers a summary of:

• What LSN did and what they found out about the work of the programme and its impact;

• What stakeholders said (quotes and findings from interviews and the survey are included throughout)

• What we (the partnership programme) have learned through the evaluation and how this helping us to shape and take forward our work in 2009/10.

What LSN did

Since the programme’s aims and objectives are associated with exerting influence through raising awareness and building capacity in the FE sector, many of the outcomes and outputs are indirect. LSN therefore designed an evaluation process that would capture or indirectly ‘measure’ the programme’s effectiveness. Three questions shaped the enquiry:

1. Has the Programme engaged appropriately with the required agencies and networks to exert strategic influence?

2. Is there evidence that awareness has been raised in the agencies and networks?

3. Have the agencies and networks acted on their raised awareness by carrying out the actions required to build capacity in the FE sector?

1 At a national level in 2008/09 the programme partners were National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE), the National Social Inclusion Programme (NSIP) and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). In the regions this partnership was represented by NIACE, the LSC and the Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP). 2 The NSIP concluded in March 2009. 3 If you would like an electronic copy of the full evaluation report contact susan.rees@niace.org.uk or download it from the partnership programme’s virtual learning environment (VLE) at http://www.niace.org.uk/moodle

“The Partnership Programme was set up to try and generate new ways of working and better understanding of the issues facing learners with mental health issues. It is about cross agency working and setting up a strategic framework at regional level that will then encourage real difference in operation and delivery at providers. And above this, there is an overall strategic framework at national level guiding the process.” (National Stakeholder)

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Figure 1 (below) summarises the evaluation research methods LSN used to answer these questions.

Figure 1 Methods used to collect information

What LSN found out about the work of the programme and its impact

In relation to the three questions posed to measure the effectiveness of the partnership programme, LSN found that:

1. The Programme’s work is influencing, and has become increasingly aligned with, LSC agendas and activities. There is strong evidence that a wide and diverse range of agencies and networks has been contacted at national and regional levels by the Programme.

2. The interviews with stakeholders and, to a lesser extent, providers, and the survey of network members the membership demonstrated that the Programme has been very effective in raising awareness of the needs of learners and potential learners with mental health issues. The wide ranging activities of the regional project officers have been instrumental in raising awareness of the needs of learners with mental health issues through their engagement with diverse, multi-agency and cross sector networks and partnerships.

3. There is strong evidence from the interviews with providers, stakeholders and the Programme’s officers that there has been a significant growth in the number and range of initiatives to increase capacity and opportunities for learning. The many examples of projects and initiatives that are being set up or developed by providers and others demonstrate that significant efforts are being made to extend access to learning for people with mental health difficulties.

Initial briefing

with Regional Project Officers

Interviews & visits

National stakeholders

24 regional level stakeholders

8 learning and skills providers (of

different types/size)

All members of the project team

Review & analysis

Contextual information (e.g.

policy)

Key documents & publications

Website & Virtual Learning

Environment (Moodle)

Database (regional network

members

Website & Virtual Learning

Environment (Moodle)

Observation

Programme meetings

Network meetings

Annual conference

Survey

Members of the 9 Regional networks

“In the economic climate, it is very difficult to get employers to take on any people let alone those with mental health issues. Their response is if they do take people with mental health issues then they will need support and where is that going to come from and who is going to pay? This is the biggest challenge and especially so because the government is following the apprenticeship route and getting access to apprenticeships is especially difficult for people with mental health issues.” (Provider)

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The Findings - Highlights

National Work Learner involvement • The Programme has been instrumental in

developing strategies for involving service users.

• The LSC Mental Health Task Group includes representation from two service users

• Learners have been invited to speak and lead workshops at the Programme’s conferences, regional and national events and seminars.

• Learners/service users regularly contribute to regional network meetings and activities.

Implementing the strategy post LSC National and regional stakeholders identified one of the crucial challenges facing the implementation of the Mental Health Strategy and delivery of the Programme in the future is the end of the LSC in 2010. There is concern that progress made by the Programme and its partner agencies in raising awareness and building capacity may be lost in the sector re-structuring.

Influencing agendas and building capacity

National interviewees felt that evidence was emerging of the Partnership’s influence. In particular Task Group members interviewed pointed to the importance of the Programme in ensuring the relevance of learning and skills to the National Social Inclusion Programme for those with mental health issues.

In addition to progressing specific activities, the programme’s national work also provides a framework for delivery at regional level. This dual dimension was cited as crucial for effecting lasting change by a number of interviewees. The interaction between national and regional activities was also thought to have encouraged mutual learning and cross fertilisation of practice and knowledge across the national and regional spectrums.

The Programme often links in to or ‘piggy-backs’ on activities being carried out by NIACE and other partners. This ensures that the needs of learners with mental health difficulties are embedded in as many relevant projects and resources as possible. Examples include:

• A Department of Health project on access to learning and skills for people with mental health difficulties to empower them to take up Direct Payments4

• Another Department of Health initiative to identify and promote the benefits of family learning and mental health

.

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• Funding was secured from NSIP to enable the Programme’s national lead to be a member of a number of advisory groups and promote the work of the Programme.

.

4 ‘Skills for Life’ is the national strategy for improving adult literacy and numeracy in England. 5 Making the Connection: Mental Health and Family Learning - developing good practice that promotes mental health to adults engaged in family learning (www.campaign-for-learning.org.uk/family/learningnetwork)

“There is a national element to the regional project plan – there are some objectives or priorities that are common to all of them – such as meeting the needs of those not in employment, education or training (NEET) and WBL, these are the national LSC priorities.” (RPO)

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The Findings - Highlights

Communications

In part a response to recommendations made in the 2008 evaluation, an Information Officer post was introduced for the Programme in 2008/09. This was the key part in the development of a national communications strategy intended to increase awareness of the Programme and its work, as well as ensuring consistent and accurate messages. National communication activity progressed to include:

• Contribution of articles to journals and regularly contributes to partners’ publications.

• Publication of four Newsletters a year

From feedback in the network members’ survey, the Newsletters are informative, well received and facilitate an exchange of information and good practice between the Programme and its membership.

Website and Moodle

The Programme supports a webpage or mini-website on the NIACE main website. It provides information about the Partnership’s activities at the national and regional levels, copies of the Regional Action Plans, reports of meetings, events and conferences, newsletters, downloadable resources and links to other sites. A report produced in November 2008, identified that the webpage had received a total of 12,861 hits.

A national virtual learning network (using NIACE Moodle) was launched in 2009 to facilitate a more interactive dialogue with special interest groups, network members and others, including those with an international remit who want to establish a dialogue with the Programme.

In the first five months of the pilot regional moodle (August 2008 to February 2009) the logs reveal 6,064 hits. A sample analysis of six network members accessing this moodle shows that it attracts users from all of the different sectors with two from FE Colleges, two from statutory mental health services, one a mental health service user and a sixth from a community and voluntary sector organisation.

Resources

The Programme published a number of resources to promote awareness of the needs of learners and help disseminate good practice.

• You Can Do It! Have you thought about going back to learning?

• Should I Say? A short guide for learners about declaring mental health difficulties.

These are resources primarily aimed at learners. They are clearly and well written, avoid jargon and are accessible. They include well chosen case studies that learners can relate to on an individual basis. The leaflets answer queries about rights and give details of where to obtain more information. They are important contributions to the debate about self-declaration.

Summary

One of the Programme’s key activities at national level is leading on and co-ordinating delivery of the LSC’s mental health strategy. Looking to the future, it will also need to ensure that progress made is not lost in the sector re-structuring brought about by the Machinery of Government reforms. However, in addition to progressing specific activities, the programme’s national work also provides a framework for delivery at regional level. The dual dimension, and interaction between them, was cited as crucial for effecting lasting change by a number of interviewees.

“People are put off from disclosing because they fear that they will be treated differently...there are also issues that providers will treat them differently but if providers do not know, they cannot put the support in place” (RPO)

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National Publications and Resources – 2008/09

1 in 4 Quarterly Newsletter

‘You can do it’ leaflet –to encourage people to

think about learning and skills

‘Working Well’ pack to support staff wellbeing in the FE sector

New information leaflets about the partnership

programme and its resources

Virtual learning networks launched on NIACE

Moodle

‘Should I say?’ leaflet to help learners with mental health difficulties decide whether or not

to declare them

1 in 4 Quarterly Newsletter‘You can do it’ leaflet to encourage people to

‘Working Well’ pack to support staff wellbeing New information leaflets about the partnership

Virtual learning networks launched on NIACE ‘Should I say?’ leaflet to help learners with

“Issues of mental health are just more visible on agendas in meetings now. People are more aware of the issues. And that does not necessarily just mean people with severe mental health difficulties. For example, it may be about an awareness of general stress levels and having a healthy workplace.” (Stakeholder)

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The Findings - Highlights

Regional Work

Influencing agendas

Broadly speaking, the Programme’s work in the regions can be seen in two dimensions: strategic and operational. The two are clearly linked, but the emphasis on the former was increased in 2008.

It was widely felt that this new dimension had helped enhance the Programme’s effectiveness and, in some cases, its relevance to other agencies. There was strong support amongst stakeholders interviewed for the Programme’s strategic focus. The key to achieving this strategic influence in the regions has been the regional project officers’ (RPOs) ability to build productive and sound relationships with partners and stakeholders, and there was recognition amongst interviewees that this can often be a difficult task. In some cases, individual relationships between RPOs and other people or agencies have been able to create very effective momentum in bridging the policy areas and the priorities of different sectors.

While this research clearly found broad support for the Programme’s strategic work, there were some concerns expressed that the Programme might lose its operational dimension and this could undermine progress towards tangible improvements for learners.

Building capacity

The Programme actively engages in work to explore barriers to access and growth in capacity and produce evidence of good practice. Some examples include:

• Development work being undertaken with the Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training at Huddersfield University. The Programme has developed the potential to be involved in the training of teachers and their Continuing Professional Development (CPD) to raise awareness and develop the skills to respond appropriately to people with mental health difficulties. The Programme is contributing to teacher training conferences and to the development of a mental health section within an on-line resource.

• Development of a good practice guide on offender learning for those with mental health difficulties.

• An audit of Early Intervention Teams was undertaken in one region. This collaborative research sought to find out how many referrals were made to Learning and Skills providers; and how many of the clients referred were from black and minority ethnic communities. The findings were presented to the national Department of Health Delivering Race Equality Task Group.

“Knowing that regional agencies have this agenda has made a huge difference to me in CSIP and has meant that I have been able to do my job better and more effectively.” (Stakeholder)

“The programme has definitely been successful at raising awareness. It has got the issues high on strategic agendas, and also there are certainly more colleges appointing people specifically to deal with these issues than there used to be. This reflects an awareness of the needs of learners. There is also more communication and joint working between PCT and learning and skills sector. All this is down to the work being done at the national and regional level to engage with other sectors and agencies. It is all down to the Partnership Programme.” (Stakeholder)

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Around the regions – 2008/09

Here (and on the front cover) members of the North East network discuss their consultation response to the LSC National Mental Health

Strategy Refresh, November 2008

‘Is it for me?’ Year 2 of our direct payments project saw the wonderful winning photo

competition entries turned into a great resource, January 2009

The London network mapped employability

pathways for people with mental health difficulties at a special meeting to inform work commissioned by London LSC, October 2008

Supporting and collaborating with the regional

employment teams’ work on workforce health and Public Service Agreement (PSA) 16 in Cambridge,

September 2008

‘Strictly arty’ training event with artists and practitioners for the Norfolk Health and Arts

Partnership, November 2008

Regional research posters at the national

conference in March 2009 gave people a chance to find out about work in progress and explore

diversity

“The [regional] action plan is dynamic. We look at it every couple of months and ask what are the challenges and why; how do we prioritise where we go from here; what progress has been made; is there anything we need to amend? For example there are three priorities that have some links to work based learning and it has been decided that we need to be more specific in actions for WBL and possibly combine these three priorities.” (RPO)

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Engaging more and different learning providers

One area in which it was felt that more work is required, however – at both strategic and operational level – is to enhance the Programme’s engagement with a wide range of providers, particularly those offering Work Based Learning (WBL) and apprenticeships.

RPOs are taking significant steps to reach out to providers through presentations at the events and conferences that providers attend. Encouragingly it had been found that once providers were encouraged to engage with the Partnership Programme, they come to appreciate its value and benefits.

Interview findings suggest that providers are often particularly difficult to engage. Although there are some colleges who are very well engaged with the Programme, there are reportedly many that are not. It appears that those that are engaged tend to be either taking steps or developing initiatives to improve access and support for learners with mental health difficulties.

There is a challenge to reach out and engage more with those providers that do not perceive positive mental health among learners and their staff to be a significant or pressing issue for them. This is especially challenging when raising awareness with WBL providers.

Regional networks

The 2007/08 evaluation report identified an average of 50 members in each of the nine regional networks at the start of the Programme and, by July 2007, this had increased to 170. The total live membership at that date was 1,466.

In February 2009 there were 1,634 active members within the Programme’s network. The table below illustrates the profile of network members by sector.

Table 1 Network membership by type of organisation, February 2009

Three sectors provide the most members for the Programme - Further Education (29%); voluntary and community (24%) and the mental health trusts (21%). However, interview data reported in chapter four suggests that some of these groups – namely learning providers and VCS organisations – appear not to be well represented at network meetings. Only about 1% of the network members (24 across all the nine regional networks) self classified specifically as employers (usually from the private sector), as distinct from any of the other categories.

The number of network members in each region varies between 247 (in Yorkshire and The Humber) and 117 (in the North East).

“The issue with WBL is that mental health has a stigma amongst employers and they will be very reluctant often to tell employers that they have mental health issues. In WBL, if you do not reach the success rates, then the LSC will take the money, the finance away and that is always a risk. So they will not take on anybody where there might be a risk of under-performing” (Stakeholder)

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Network meetings

All network members have access to the Programme’s resources, are invited to network meetings and events and, through the newly introduced Moodles, are able to develop interactive contact with the RPO and other members. All this activity is to help facilitate the exchange of information and good practice towards the Programme’s aims to increase opportunities for learning for those with mental health difficulties. At an operational level, it appears the network meetings continue to be a success. Evidence from both interviews the network member survey suggesting that these are welcomed by many parts of the sector, particularly as an opportunity to share practice and generate ideas from across different parts of the sector.

The table below indicates that attendance at meetings is quite high (69% of respondents indicated that they either always attended or attended once or twice a year)6

Table 2

The survey of network members, as well as the interviews with RPOs and stakeholders, provided considerable feedback on network meetings. The majority of respondents found network meetings useful (57% selected very useful and a further 35% selected quite useful).

The consultation process involved for the 2009 Mental Health Strategy was said to have contributed significantly to increased awareness and provided a focus for discussion of the many issues.

While network meetings were praised for their work in bringing together different organisations and sectors, there was a feeling that some agencies or occupations are still under-represented. For instance, it was felt that participation by more senior managers from FE Colleges (as opposed to practitioners) who could ensure that the needs of learners with mental health difficulties were high on the College agenda could be beneficial. Also interviewees would like to see more strategic policy makers and more employers attending the events.

6 Since many survey questionnaires were filled out at meetings, these figures may be higher than average across the entire network

“The network meetings are important and they provide a focus for feedback and suggestions. There is representation from employment, health and the education sectors and that means you get different viewpoints and better dissemination of information. I think this in turn encourages people to become more active as network members.” (Stakeholder)

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The Findings - The survey of network members

Responses to the survey were received from all regions (see table 3 below), with a total of 218 responses7 . This is a 13.4% response rate from the total membership of 1,634. Participation in the survey was offered to respondents as an online survey via LSN’s website or by completing a hard copy of the questionnaire returned directly to LSN. The majority of responses made were by ‘hard copy’ from participants attending network meetings. Because most of the responses were made by participants attending meetings, this may represent a bias in the results towards representing the views of members who do attend meetings.

Table 3 no. of responses to the survey by region

Effectiveness of the programme for key

objectives

Table 4 (opposite) shows that the majority of network members surveyed felt that the Programme is effective in both raising awareness at the strategic level and building capacity of the FE sector.

Table 4

7 Note: not all respondents answered all questions, and therefore the base number is sometimes less. In addition, questions that invited respondents to ‘select all that apply’ may have totals that are greater than 100%.

2413 15 18

29

57

19 1524

40

10

20

30

40

50

60

NE NW Y&H WM EM EoE London SE SW (N/A)

No. of responses from each region (n=218)

0%10%20%30%40%50%

To a large extent

To some extent

To very little or no

extent

Don't know

37%42%

5%

18%15%

46%

9%

29%

Raise awareness of and address issues at a strategic level

Build capacity of the FE sector

“Knowing that regional agencies have this agenda has made a huge difference to me in CSIP and has meant that I have been able to do my job better and more effectively.” (Stakeholder)

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For the second tier of the Programme’s objectives table 5 shows that more than a quarter of respondents said that the Programme had been effective to a large extent in raising achievement and ensuring the quality of provision for learners with mental health issues. Those respondents choosing to ‘a large extent’ fell to 16%, however, in respect of the Programme’s influence on boosting demand for learning.

Table 5

One of the survey questions invited respondents to rate 12 different network activities as:

- Very useful - Quite useful - Not useful - Not aware of - Don’t know

All activities were rated as ‘very useful’ or ‘quite usefu’ by 57% or more people. Table 6 (opposite) shows the 3 network activities that were most frequently rated as ‘very useful’.

Table 6 Network activities most frequently rated as 'very useful'

Five activities were rated overall as ‘very useful’ or ‘quite useful’ by more than 90% of respondents (see table 7 opposite)

Table 7 Activities rated as 'very useful’ or 'quite useful' by more than 90% of respondents

Funding withdrawal from leisure courses has affected many prospective learners from crossing the threshold and taking the first step back to college. This needs to be addressed. (Survey respondent)

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Ten of the network activities received at least 2 ‘not useful’ ratings from respondents. As the numbers are quite small they are shown in table 8 opposite as the actual number of negative responses, rather than percentages.

Table 8 No. of respondents rating activities as 'not useful'

What we (the partnership programme) have learned through the evaluation and how this helping us to shape and take forward our work in 2009/10

This independent evaluation formed an important part of the 2008/09 programme, enabling us to reflect on our own practice and understand more about how our stakeholders experience and perceive the programme’s work. We have critically reflected on what this evaluation report tells us about our work and how we can retain the things that work well and re-shape things that don’t work so well. As well as taking action on the conclusions and future challenges identified in the report by LSN, we noted some very interesting regional variations in the data LSN made available to us from the survey of network members. This has also made us stop and think about what it tells us for our capacity building work in the regions. The lessons we have from each of these aspects of the evaluation are helping us to develop and prioritise our work and communications in 2009/10. Some examples of what this will look like in practice are described below.

Action on comments and challenges in the evaluation report

Communicating our aims clearly

Most of the key stakeholders interviewed for this evaluation, although fewer of the providers, had a good grasp of the Programme’s goals and remits... A lack of awareness and clarity about the Programme’s full aims by many of those interviewed does suggest that it would be beneficial to provide a formal re-statement of the Programme’s objectives, especially given the greater emphasis on strategic influence at the regional level. (LSN page15)

“A key barrier is that the funding regime for colleges works against flexibility. Colleges are used to people dropping out but not geared up to bringing people back and any person who is suffering from stress may need to drop out for a period of time and then come back.” (Stakeholder)

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This finding is very helpful to the programme. We realise that it is important that we find ways of enabling people to understand this complex programme of work. We also know that because the programme works at different levels, involves work across a number of sectors and includes a range of activities stakeholders experience and engage with us it in different ways –often within the same organisation -and may not be aware of the ‘bigger picture’ or how things fit together.

In addition to the clear LSC vision and priorities identified for providers in the new LSC mental health strategy (‘The Way Forward’, 2009), in 2009/10 the programme’s objectives and activities will be explicitly linked to the action points identified in the strategy.

The programme is also actively working on developing better and clearer ways of communicating its aims, objectives and activities to all stakeholders. An example is the figure below –currently in draft form - it seeks to illustrate the conceptual framework for the programme. We hope that this will help people to see how we approach what we do and how the different elements of our work fit together.

Figure 2

“One of the key things that the LSC should really be commended on is having a mental health strategy at all. It is quite rare – I think it is possibly the only example in the world of a dedicated mental health strategy.” (National Stakeholder)

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Engaging with more providers

In 2009/10 the Programme will continue to work at both national and regional levels. Each regional project officer has dedicated time to support capacity building within their region and to take forward work to address region-specific priorities. They will also lead on specific targeted national projects, several of which will involve pilot sites in all nine regions, to take forward the action points in the LSC strategy. These include, for example:

Learner involvement –will promote learner/service user involvement through resources targeted at learners/service users, and by modelling approaches for involvement in our work and training.

Boosting demand for learning – learning providers and their local partners in 9 pilots will test out and collect evidence on effective strategies for boosting demand for learning.

Mentoring for learners from Black and Minority Ethnic communities – will develop a mentoring curriculum for Black and Minority Ethnic service users/advocates to support other Black and Minority Ethnic service users to access and persist and succeed in learning.

Declaring mental health difficulties - will develop resources and support good practice in disclosure of mental health needs and effective support for learning for learners who declare their experience of mental health difficulties.

Back on Track2 – will pilot work that addresses the needs of young people with mental health difficulties and promotes better partnership working with Early Intervention in Psychosis teams and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and will also test out the flexibilities of the Foundation Learning Tier for these learners.

Work based learning – will work with work-based learning providers in 9 pilot sites to improve their capacity to recruit and support learners with mental health problems.

“With WBL and to some extent with Train to Gain, it is difficult. But there has been some success and I am more hopeful. We need to make sectors, organisations and individuals see and perceive how the work that we do is relevant to them and their work. We need to find better ways of communicating with WBL providers and their partners then ‘they will get it’.” (RPO)

“The important factor is whether people gather good practice at the meetings that they attend and other information and then cascade it through their organisation. I am not sure if that happens and that is a key factor. I am not sure if the people who attend have the clout within their organisations to make changes. It needs decision makers as well as practitioners to be engaged.” (Stakeholder)

There is a challenge to reach out and engage more with those providers that do not perceive positive mental health among learners and their staff to be a significant or pressing issue for them. This is especially challenging when raising awareness with Work Based Learning (WBL) providers. (LSN page 42)

“One of the real problems with this partnership programme is that the funding only lasts on a year cycle, so you can’t plan long term projects or a schedule of things to do in the next year. If the funding is going to be short term, then you need the next year’s funding secured quite early on, so they could start planning.” (Stakeholder)

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Lessons learned and interesting regional variations

Involving learners, service users and employers

We strongly agree with LSN’s conclusion and challenge for the future that we need to increase participation in our programme by employers and people who have experience of mental health difficulties and in 2009/10 we will continue to actively engage with, strengthen and widen their participation in our regional and national work.

We also fully take the point that we could achieve more by recognising that the profile of our network members is complex and people are so much more than the sector they work in. Their diversity strengthens our work and offers us opportunities for recognising and engaging with people in all of their identities -including as employers and learners and service users and carers.

One of the things that the evaluation has taught us is that the programme’s work has been established for long enough and is complex enough for us to need to better understand difference and complexity in our own work. For example, looking at network members’ responses to the evaluation survey it is clear (that in our reporting at least) we are not really recognising the number of people participating in the programme who have experience of mental health difficulties. Unlike our network joining form the survey gave participants the option to select more than one response and this gave us some interesting information that we have not previously captured.

LSN provided us with anonymised responses to the survey, region by region. Reviewing these we found a rich source of quantitative data and qualitative comments. For example, we observed that while 42 (19%) respondents overall declared that they ‘have personal experience of mental health difficulties, this overall figure hides some interesting and unexplained variations between the regions, (see Table 9 below). The larger number of responses made to the survey from some regions probably accounts for some of the variation but it does not fully explain for example why one region (which had the 4th highest response rate for completion of the survey) had a nil response to this question, 3 regions had positive responses to this question of between 4% and 8% and 3 regions had response rates to this question between 20% and 32%.

Only about 1% of the network members (24 across all the nine regional networks) self classified specifically as employers (usually from the private sector), as distinct from any of the other categories. This significantly underestimates the presence of employers engaged with the Partnership Programme, however, because members can only choose one category for self classification. Almost all other organisations engaged with the Programme for example, local authorities, the NHS Trusts, FE Colleges and Government Offices are also employers. For the Programme, these employers could be described as a ‘captured and committed’ audience and more attention to the employment opportunities that such employers could provide would be beneficial (LSN page 33)

Get service users with experience of educational environments alongside, and educating those in positions of power in FE! (Survey respondent)

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Table 9 number of participants declaring personal experience of mental health difficulties, by region

We are interested to explore this further in order to help us understand what works in terms of learner/service user involvement in the networks and/or enabling people to feel able to declare their mental health difficulties. Because the data we have is anonymised we cannot go back to the individuals who responded positively to this question in the survey, but we can and will discuss the issue more broadly with network members via our virtual learning environments and regional learning events to try and draw out any further lessons we can learn from our network members.

Other activities

Sharing personal experience of mental health difficulties was not the only question in the survey that elicited interesting variations between regions and it was true of both qualitative and quantitative responses. This is of interest in terms of analysing our overall project performance and recognising why work that has a regional focus can be important in advancing our understandings. It is also of interest to regional project officers in relation to developing our own reflective practice and the possibility that peer review might be a useful tool for us to support our professional development and the programme’s quality assurance processes. As we want to be responsive to the comments of our network members and because the data was collected relatively recently and can therefore still be seen as ‘current’ regional project officers have been provided with the anonymised regional data to enable them to fully explore and use this information.

Some further examples include:

1. Overall the positive response rate for ‘regular network meetings’ was 92% (with 57% rating them as ‘very useful’ and 35% rating them ‘quite useful’). Analysis at the regional level gives a variation between 100% in London and 87% in the South West

“A key barrier is that the funding regime for colleges works against flexibility. Colleges are used to people dropping out but not geared up to bringing people back and any person who is suffering from stress may need to drop out for a period of time and then come back.” (Stakeholder)

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2. In response to the the question that asked people to rate how useful 12 network activities

were, 40 respondents were not aware of activities enabling them to become involved in developing publications, activities and specific projects and a further 29 people were undecided about how useful this is. Given the focus of the Programme in 2009/10 on national projects to invite learning providers and others to test out different strategies this finding makes it clear that effective communication of the projects and how people can be involved may be a critical determinant of their participation. Given that all regions had participants who were unaware or undecided about this activity we recognise that all RPOs will need to communicate this effectively to their network members at the earliest opportunity.

3. Another area where RPOs will need to communicate wider opportunities for engagement with the programme is through special interest groups. Twenty-six people were unaware of the programme’s special interest groups/forums and a further 38 people were undecided about how useful these are. Regional responses varied from NE region where all respondents were aware of these and found them useful to circa 50% of respondents being unaware or undecided about their usefulness in 4 regions. Several of the projects in the programme for 2009/10 make raising awareness of special interest fora particularly important to progress.

4. Twenty-three people were unaware of being able to contact their RPO for information, advice and support and a further 30 peope were undecided about the usefulness of being able to do so. This applies across all regions, but was least in the West Midlands, where just two people were unaware of this activity and most in the East of England where 8 respondents were unaware and 8 undecided about the usefulness of this activity.

5. Fifteeen people were unaware of the programme’s policy advocacy activities and a further 20 people were undecided about how useful this is to them.

6. None or very few of the respondents in two regions (North East and North West) identified any of the network activities as ‘not useful’ compared with the other 7 regions.

Improvements to our regional network meetings in 2009/10

A number of factors (changes within the FE sector, our growing understanding of what makes for successful network meetings and the growing number of people attending them as well as some of the findings from the survey of network members in this evaluation) have helped us decide to make some improvements this year. We recognise that valuable learning takes place at the meetings and that we can further support and recognise this for professionals in relation to their continuous professional development, and for learners, service users and carers in terms of their involvement. In 2009/10 the format and content of the meetings will be altered to offer three regional learning events each year in each region. The aims and learning outcomes for each event will be clearly identified and we will give people certificates of attendance, which include a reflective learning tool, to help them to capture the learning and skills they acquire and develop through their participation.

Focus on creating an atmosphere whereby everyone can share their experiences and develop best practice - most of the problems the network has, and users in education have, are about communication. Put users alongside teachers, the network is top heavy with educational administrators (Survey respondent).

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Conclusion As LSN’s evaluation has shows the Partnership Programme is having a positive impact on learning provision for people who have experience of mental health difficulties. The LSC is continuing to support and fund the partnership programme for a fourth year in 2009-2010, when the LSC and NIACE will be joined by a new partner -The Inclusion Institute from the International School for Communities, Rights and Inclusion - bringing an international dimension and a strong focus on community development to the work.

The final section of this summary described some of the ways in which the Partnership Programme’s work will be developed through national and regional work. One of the key challenges the Partnership Programme will respond to this year is taking the work forward during the Further Education sector Machinery of Government transition period and beyond. The Partnership Programme has established a Transition Management Group to help steer the work though this period of change so that the needs of learners with experience of mental health difficulties continue to be addressed through close working arrangements with local authorities and by the newly formed Young People’s Learning Agency, the Skills Funding Agency and the National Apprenticeship Service.

The partnership programme team found the experience of being involved in the process and reading the final evaluation report were valuable learning experiences for us. We would like to thank the team at LSN who conducted the evaluation. We are especially grateful to the learners/mental health service users, network members, partner agencies, learning providers and other stakeholders who so kindly gave their time to speak to LSN and/or complete the survey for this evaluation. Thank you.