Kent & Medway Learning Partnerships > Thames Gateway

We are pleased to confirm that we have been successful in our bid to develop the Kent & Medway Learning Network as part of the South East Action for Communities model.

Wendy Wilton & Helen Hume

Kent & Medway Learning Partnerships

Update on Action for Communities ’Laying the foundations’

The Kent and Medway Learning Partnerships with KCC are writing one of the bids for the ESF ’Laying the Foundations’ Networks. This bid will be proposing a Kent and Medway wide series of networks and partnerships.

At present we are negotiating with a number of umbrella organisations to try and ensure a wide representation in the process. Of course we have not been able to reach everybody. If our bid is successful, it is our intention to invite and include as many organisations as possible to engage in consultation and communication about the developing networks during the second phase of the bid in April, May and June. We would expect that by building on existing best practice and successful community education projects to develop a series of broad and inclusive partnership networks. We would welcome expressions of interest from all organisations involved in Adult and Community Education in Kent and Medway.

Please register your interest by emailing Melanie Gibson Barton who will add your details to the document ’Organisations offering partnerships’ - see below.

Action for Communities is the South East strategy to place learning in the community at the centre of economic and social well being in the region. It aims to maximise opportunities for adults to learn in their communities and to make best use of all available resources to support them, giving priority for public funding to those needing it most.

This strategy embraces a wide range of programmes and development projects and will help put the region in a good position to respond effectively to national strategies for skills, including the Leitch Report; communities, including contributing to Local Area Agreements; community health; and culture and sport, including the Olympics.

The European funded Laying the Foundations programme sits within the wider Action for Communities strategy. It is a capacity building programme to develop up to 20 effective, sustainable learning networks that can make good use of the variety of resources available to support adults to learn in their communities.

The project will encourage a refocusing of existing partnerships and support the development of new ones where they are needed in order to: develop local brokerage services, enhance a range of outcomes for adult learners; expand access to learning for excluded and hard to reach groups; and lay the foundations for achieving coherence, breadth and consistent quality of learning provision across the Region. It will build the capacity of learning networks to enable them to respond to the challenge of the LSC’s PCDL agenda to develop locally responsive provision.

Funding for Laying the Foundations of £1.8 million comes from the Action for Skills ESF funding and forms part of the South East’s co-financing plan. The tender has been awarded to a partnership led by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE). The Project Manager will work with partners and LSC Partnership Teams to support the development of effective and sustainable learning networks: ESF funding will support networks to develop improved learning and progression opportunities for learners in communities through learning brokerage and aligning of available resources.

The Learning Network specification is appended below for downloading, together with a document giving details of organisations interested in becoming a partner in a learning network. If you wish to add your organisation to the list, please email Melanie Gibson Barton.