David Fuegi

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• David Fuegi
• Learneast Project Manager

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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.

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Achieved by

• Setting up a regional demonstration project
• Providing ICT based learning programmes aimed at
  specified target groups
• Providing specially trained staff
• Setting up new working partnerships
• Mainstreaming

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LearnEast Partnership

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

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What is LearnEast about? (1)

• LearnEast aims to show how libraries can uniquely
  fill a space in the national provision
• Reach libraries are everywhere
• Access convenient hours
• Environment neutral, non-threatening
• Community links
• Inclusive
• Infrastructure Peoples Network
• Learning tradition

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What is LearnEast about? (2)

• So, we believe that libraries should be brought
  into mainstream practice and funding
• BUT we recognise that we must show that libraries
  can
• Attract the target groups
• Train staff appropriately
• Demonstrate account for outcomes
• Provide for progression
• Build the right partnerships

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Innovation

• Innovation in this project is
• Focus on specific target groups
• Determination to make new local regional
  partnerships
• Demonstrating impact particularly employment
  outcomes
• LearnEast is the only public library EQUAL
  project in the UK only two (of more than 1300)
  in the whole of Europe

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Time and money

• Cost is 3 million euros 2m
• 50 funded by ESF
• Match funding mainly staff labour
• Project runs from May 2002 to August 2004
• Will account for 400 ESF beneficiaries

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Sub-Objectives (1)

• To raise the profile of public libraries and to
  build strong local partnerships.
• To provide a model for other public libraries.
• To utilise the reach of the library service to
  contact and enthuse the target audience towards
  take up of learning opportunities
• 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.

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Sub-objectives (2)

• 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.

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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

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The Work (1)

• In the UK, the Partnership will
• train a selected group of new and existing staff
  in the principles of EQUAL, and the needs of the
  target groups
• engage with the target groups - initially by
  outreach work, by visiting community groups to
  make presentations, talk about learning and
  employment opportunities, and to demonstrate
  awareness and taster sessions.

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The Work (2)

• 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

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Benefits for customers

• Trained staff to help and support
• An outreach programme for staff to visit,
  demonstrate and talk to community groups
• Well equipped computer access points in libraries
  many are approved Learning Centres
• Assisted awareness sessions
• Access to learning programmes and resources
• Information, advice and guidance on learning and
  employment opportunities
• LearnEast is free to approved users

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Transnational Work

• Transnational partners are Abside (Italy) and
  Caribal-Edist (France)
• Workshops have been held in each partners
  country
• Cambridge workshop 4/5 Sept 2003
• Presentations made at conferences in Portugal,
  Moscow and Berlin
• One of 8 selected case studies for the Pulman
  Poicy Conference
• Participation in SEIN study (social inclusion
  case studies)

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Expected outcomes

• Successful engagement with the target groups
• Recorded outcomes for 400 beneficiaries
• Sustainable ongoing relationships
• Formal evaluation
• A web-based toolkit for other library
  authorities
• Continuation of the service

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Importance of LearnEast for public libraries and
for policymakers

• Mainstreaming
• Making this kind of activity a normal part of
  library service
• Moving it into national and regional policy
• Earning wider recognition for public libraries in
  hard employment outcomes
• Aim to win over policy makers and funders

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Evaluation plan

• Strong emphasis on evaluation
• Contract let to external evaluation specialist
  by restricted tender
• Aims to demonstrate impact on partners and
  beneficiaries
• Uses interviews, questionnaires, focus groups
  etc
• Will provide inputs to the toolkit
• Evaluation empowers and motivates staff and
  gives them new skills

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Evaluation plan selection of evaluators

• Bidders needed to demonstrate
• experience of ESF evaluation experience of ADAPT
  or EMPLOYMENT was especially welcome
• an in depth understanding of EQUAL
• a proven track record of work in the employment
  or lifelong learning domain and, if possible, in
  the public library domain
• experience of carrying out effective project
  management
• Ability to work to tight deadlines.

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Evaluation plan aims

• Meeting the formal evaluation requirements of
  Equal
• Demonstrating impact on beneficiaries using both
  hard and soft indicators
• Demonstrating the establishment of strong local
  partnerships and
• Documenting these aspects of the project for both
  internal and external audiences.
• The internal audience is the DP and ESF
• The external audience is the wider library
  profession through the toolkit on the web.

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Evaluate what?

• Impact on beneficiaries and on a sample of other
  customers of the services offered
• Impact on local partners. This includes forming a
  view on the partnership process and whether
  strong lasting partnerships were created in
  conformity with the projects objectives. The
  views both of service deliverers e.g.
  Connexions and groups representing beneficiaries
  are required.
• Impact on staff who worked on the project.
• Approach to empowerment formative.
• Approach to equal opportunities formative and
  summative.

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Evaluation plan how?

• Tools interviews, questionnaires, focus groups
  etc
• Forms jointly designed to feed both monitoring
  and evaluation
• Stakeholders/partners/ our own
  staff/beneficiaries baseline interviews and
  later interviews to assess impact
• Focus groups with staff to assess training impact
  and with beneficiaries
• Beneficiary monitoring forms and tracking
  questionnaires assess whether we reached the
  intended groups

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Evaluators' warning!

• However, the ambition of the project could be an
  issue. The project is quite small in terms of
  numbers of people involved, beneficiaries and
  scale of activity and yet the hopes for it in
  terms of integration into local partnerships and
  demonstration of a range of good practice methods
  and techniques are quite high. We will be
  interested to note the degree to which the
  management team are able to generate profile from
  this type of project.

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Evaluation plan outputs?

• an evaluation plan as agreed by the DP
• interim deliverables as specified by the contract
  and the evaluation plan
• a formal, summative evaluation of the work
  undertaken.
• quarterly progress reports and...

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Evaluation plan outputs?

• Narrative report describing both methods and
  outcomes in a format suitable for publication on
  the web as part of the DPs toolkit for other
  libraries, outlining problems encountered and
  overcome, and the reasons for inclusion or
  exclusion of particular methodologies
• Two chapters for the toolkit
• outcomes of the Co-East Equal DPA and
• a brief guide to using the most effective methods.

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Finally

• First annual report expected in the autumn
• Project is ambitious and may therefore not
  totally succeed
• Even failure or partial success can be valuable
  and instructive EQUAL is meant to be
  experimental
• Copies of tender documents and evaluation plan
  and forms available for colleagues.
• Questions?