Supported learning for mothers with learning difficulties

Grantholders: Tim Booth, Wendy Booth and Sheffield Women's Cultural Club, funded by the Department for Education and Employment.

This project was conducted in partnership with Sheffield Women's Cultural Club and financed by the DfEE's Adult and Community Learning Fund. It ran for two years from September 1999 through to August 2001.

Aims

The project offered personal support and development in self-advocacy to mothers with learning difficulties through a semi-structured programme of learning opportunities and activities designed to

• enable mothers by providing instruction in new skills

• empower mothers by supporting them in making decisions and speaking up for themselves

• enhance mothers' self-esteem by providing them with opportunities to develop and demonstrate their competence

• extend mothers' social networks

in order to support them in their parenting and in meeting the needs of their children.

Methods

The project

• ran a weekly learning support group for mothers

• provided a step onto the ladder of learning through the provision of day and evening courses and activities run by Sheffield Women's Cultural Club

• provided guidance and support in accessing educational courses

• facilitated mothers' involvement in voluntary and community organisations in Sheffield

• arranged customised courses designed around the particular needs and interests of mothers.

The project built on good practice in the continuing education of adults with learning difficulties. In particular, it followed:

• A person-centred approach based on negotiated learning where the mothers made their own decisions about what they learned and how.

• An adult approach which recognised and respected people's prior learning and the life skills they brought with them.

• A grounded approach using real-life situations that involved the mothers in developing their self-advocacy skills by addressing issues arising in their own lives.

• A flexible approach which allowed mothers to participate in the project on their own terms and to vary their involvement in line with changes in their circumstances and their own personal development.

• An inclusive approach that made use where possible of non-segregated learning opportunities that brought mothers into contact with other people.

Mothers with learning difficulties are known to be 'hard-to-reach', suspicious of professionals and their kind, reluctant to join in organised activities, erratic in their attendance and quick to drop out.

The reasons for this reticence are rooted in their lives and their experience of exclusion.

The project used the lessons from the self-help movement in overcoming mothers' lack of confidence and helping them to forge a positive identity for themselves within the group. A key way of achieving this objective is ensuring that people feel valued for what they are. The support group provided this kind of validation, especially through the development of mutually supportive relationships between the mothers themselves that extended beyond the group into their lives in the community.

The driving purpose of the project was self-advocacy: people learning to take greater control over their own lives (in this case, mothers learning to handle their parental responsibilities). Self-advocacy is about people working together to find their own voice, speak up for themselves, recognise their strengths, make their own decisions and, in the case of project mothers, identify their own learning needs as parents. Mentoring relationships were instrumental in the pursuit of this end. The idea of mothers supporting mothers was a core feature the project.

Evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation were built into the project in order to establish what worked and what did not work for these 'hard-to-help' mothers, and to assess the process and outcomes of the project.

This aspect of the project involved

• systematic and continuous case recording

• structured observation

• formative assessments of mothers' progress

• summative assessment of learning outcomes

• interviews with practitioners and other learning providers involved with the project.

The mothers themselves were involved as partners in the formative and summative assessments.

This process of monitoring and evaluation was a continuous feature of the project, designed to ensure that it was driven by the progress of mothers.

Learning to be a mum is an important step towards 'active citizenship'. The project has shown how mothers can be supported in making room in their lives for such new learning in ways that fit with their personal goals and their family's needs.

Read the final project report: Self-advocacy and supported learning for mothers with learning difficulties (PDF, 122KB)

Next steps

The Supported Learning Project (SLP) concluded at the end of August 2001 when its funding from the DfEE ceased. In line with our agreed exit strategy, we had already been working to mainstream the project by exploring alternative sources of follow-on funding that would secure both continuity of support for the mothers involved and continuity of employment for the workers while still holding to the values and working methods on which it had been based. We were delighted when a collaborative bid with Circles Network for Department of Health (Section 64) funding was successful, enabling a seamless transfer of responsibility for the project and guaranteeing its future for at least the next three years.

Circles Network is a national voluntary organisation with an educational objective of building inclusive communities, primarily through the setting up of circles of support. They run a range of special projects, including the Crowley House project for parents with learning difficulties.

The new project – to be known as the Supported Parenting Project – will build on and develop the work of the SLP by complementing the existing mothers-only programme with a new support network and learning programme specifically for couples. A deliberate aim is to engage successfully with the men in these families.

The project will use an advocacy-based approach to involve couples, where one or both partners have learning difficulties, in a support network offering opportunities for developing confidence and competence in parenting based on a structured programme of activities geared to their own learning needs.