Society, Health and Development

Lisa Hoseason, Diploma Line Lead, Newcastle Consortium
Pippa Frost, Practitioner and Diploma Line Lead, Hertfordshire Consortium

Narrator: For the Newcastle consortium, like many others, the main barrier to employer engagement for the Diploma in SHD, is access to potentially sensitive workplaces, like hospitals, courts and care homes.

Lisa Hoseason, Diploma Line Lead, Newcastle Consortium: I think it is the risks that are involved in working with vulnerable people. So that includes, you know, children, sick people, people with mental illnesses, the elderly and the disabled and working with people within the criminal justice system as well. So it brings in all those things like confidentiality.

Narrator: All Newcastle’s SHD learners have Criminal Records Bureau checks when they enrol. They also do the intensive confidentiality, and health and safety training that employers demand.

Lisa Hoseason: It's setting up an agreement between ourselves and the employer and making sure that they're getting out of it what they want and that we're getting out of it what we need for our students as well. We've never had any issues with, you know, clients being put in any danger or anything like that because our checks are so robust.

Narrator: Learners are also prepared for any potentially difficult or traumatic situations they may face in the workplace.

Lisa Hoseason: Before they would actually go out into a placement it's important for us to, you know, sit down on a one-to-one basis and talk through with them what kind of things they'll be expected to do, because obviously we'll have already established that with the employer.

Narrator: But situations like working with the police are often too dangerous for learners.

Lisa Hoseason: There are going to be some circumstances where students can't get access to go and visit places. But what we've done is we’ve tried - if that can't happen, we're getting visitors to come in and talk to the students.

Narrator: Newcastle, like many consortia, had little experience engaging with employers in the community justice sector, but found that access was easier than they thought.

Lisa Hoseason: Whereas we thought it was quite inaccessible because, you know, you think about that it's private and it's confidential, but it was actually quite easy to get in contact and people were quite keen.

I mean, a lot of the employers already have divisions or people dedicated to going out into the community and talking to young people, people in schools and colleges, about what they do. So there's quite often already a person or a contact within that sector who's quite happy to come out and do that kind of stuff and is quite well prepared for it as well.

Narrator: But, for the Hertfordshire consortium, like many others, the main barrier is employers’ fear of being swamped by learners doing conventional block work experience.

Pippa Frost, Practitioner and Diploma Line Lead, Hertfordshire Consortium: What's really interesting is if you can work on the basis of the young people providing a service to that employer, or working on a project for that employer, all those concerns tend to start to melt away, because they're not thinking about, "How can I keep that young person busy for five hours, for a whole week?" They are actually thinking about, "Well, what could that young person do for me?"

Narrator: One of the safeguards in place, before the learners begin their work experience, is highlighting the important issues of child protection and confidentiality.

Pippa Frost: Today's session is all about children and protecting children. And it's really important for you to actually go through this training and this process because you're going into the workplace; you're going into primary schools to deliver lunchtime clubs.

Narrator: The learners will provide kids' clubs at the local primary school, not only to support the development of their personal, learning and thinking skills, but to provide much needed support for staff in return.

Another barrier the Hertfordshire consortium has encountered is negotiating work placement opportunities for learners in the health sector, where many areas are considered high risk. By broadening the search, it has found departments able to accommodate its learners.

Pippa Frost: Once we started talking about, "Well, could they work in pharmacy, pathology?" those barriers started to break down. It allows the students to access all sorts of information about the workplace, but without it being threatening to anybody.

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