Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council - Supporting people re-inspection
Rating: Poor service | Promising prospects for improvement
Rochdale's Supporting People programme has worked with a local college and partners to develop innovative ways of providing learning opportunities for staff and service users at no financial cost. These opportunities are available for all service providers and their service users. Supporting People looked to find the most appropriate courses and qualifications and chose to work with Hopwood Hall College, the main further education college in Rochdale, which offered the flexibility they needed with a steering group to oversee early pilot activity. An example of the training available is bespoke ICT training to meet the needs of service users wishing to produce their own newsletter. Nine service users had attended this course at the time of the inspection. Four had successfully completed a basic course, having never previously used a computer. One said: 'It was like sitting at a spaceship to start with, but it’s easier than I thought'. Others are using a number of different computer packages and are about to start the presentation section of their programme, which will help to improve their communication and written language skills. There is increasing take-up from both providers and service users, and evidence of the training delivering longer-term benefits for service users. A case study of this initiative has been presented to the Board of Business Link North West and the Skills Minister, as an example of best practice in partnership working.