Examples of LITC
How some of our staff have been Learning in the Community...
David Williams (Founder and CEO Impact International)
David has been involved in a partnership with the CEO of Community Action Network. They coach and mentor each other offering support and acting as sounding boards for new ideas and actively help each other to build business.
Impact and CAN are benefitting hugely from this relationship in terms of new ideas, new contacts, actual business, marketing opportunities and leveraging our influence and profile.
Maggie Pearce (Senior Consultant, Impact UK)
Maggie has been involved in painting cartoon style murals at a local nursery school. She has a personal interest in the nursery as it is attended by her children. She has spent three days working on this project.
Cartooning is something Maggie uses to illustrate models and theories while training. Cartooning on a large scale like the work she has done in the school has greatly increased her confidence and ability.
Impact gained great PR from this project and other schools have shown an interest in Maggie and Impact doing similar work for their schools.
Ian Wilson (Trainer, Impact France)
Ian has been involved in DJ work with local charities. Using Impact's PA equipment and large selection of tunes he has helped out at two functions for a local community college and one for the Impact children's holiday.
The community partners got a good quality DJ for free who played the music they liked.
Ian had the opportunity to practise and develop his AV skills which will be useful when he is supporting future Impact programmes.
Stuart Halford (Operations, Impact UK)
Stuart was approached by his daughter's school to help them transform an area in the school grounds from an overgrown weeded mess to an area pupils can use as an outdoor classroom / quiet study area. Stuart liaised with the head teacher of the school to agree exactly what she wanted for the school and planned the logistics of the whole event. He engaged a team of Impact staff from across the business to carry out the project during the school holidays to minimise disruption to the pupils.
The practical work of the project took a day and a half to complete. The school are very happy with the work we carried out and use their new facility regularly.
Stuart had the chance to practise and develop his skills of running a creative construction type project.
The Impact team who worked on the project were from across the business, they were given an insight into how a construction project is run. This raised awareness of the potential for using creative construction projects as a training tool. We also created a link with a local school which we could use in the future.
Karen Jaques (Senior Consultant, Impact UK)
Karen is coaching the head teacher of a local school focussing on addressing performance issues.
The benefits of this are two-fold. Firstly the head teacher is receiving first class professional coaching from an experienced coach. Secondly Karen has the opportunity to explore leadership and performance management issues through her coaching. Also increasing her coaching hours will move her closer to accreditation as a coach by the International Coaching Federation.
Amy Parker (HR Co-ordinator, Impact UK)
Impact work closely with CBEC, our local Education Business Partnership on their Work Ready Programme, preparing pupils for the workplace. One way we have been involved is to provide staff to help out with mock interviews. Amy Parker, HR, has taken part in a number of these events:
"Hopefully the students benefited through experiencing a mock interview situation. They received feedback and will use this to improve their performance for the next time they encounter an interview situation. Personally, I developed interview techniques and confidence in one to one situations. This will definitely help me in the future".
Nick Gannicliffe (Facilitator, Impact UK)
Nick completed his LITC at Lancaster Royal Grammar School. He worked with 3 teachers to develop a General Studies course (to be called LIFE) for the following year's Lower 6th, to develop their personal leadership skills and self-awareness. The course was designed in response to feedback that the school produced boys who were academically gifted but who could be rather socially immature and lacking in the skills that universities and future employers require. The challenge for the final term will see the boys trying to set-up a social enterprise. Nick described his LITC as "some of the most satisfying work I've ever done at Impact"
Emma Willerton (Community Partner Liaison)
The Bendrigg Trust was established in 1978 to specialise in courses and activities for disabled and disadvantaged young people. They have since developed a reputation as one of the most versatile and forward thinking residential centres in the country. Groups enjoy a wide range of indoor and outdoor activities and, at the same time, learn a great deal about themselves and others. This is especially true when group members from different backgrounds share activities and facilities at the lodge.
Emma spent her Learning in the Community days at Bendrigg Lodge mutually sharing skills and knowledge whilst working alongside their staff and clients.
"For me this was an opportunity to go back to my roots, delivering outdoor activity sessions to young people. I had forgotten how tiring this job is! The purpose of my time at Bendrigg was to learn from them how they adapt outdoor activities to accommodate people with a variety of disabilities. This will help us to develop our own activities, if necessary, to accommodate a diverse range of participants. I was placed in an assistant instructor role to work alongside their full time staff, sharing my skills, experience and at times brute force to help them deliver a programme of activities to a group of young people with severe physical and mental disabilities.
As well as the obvious benefits to myself, Impact and Bendrigg Lodge, the week was immensely rewarding and left me with a huge amount of respect for those who work with people with disabilities and provide them with amazingly powerful outdoor experiences".
