UNISON Ulearn Northern Ireland

I’ve been working as a community support worker for the last five years and absolutely love it. If anyone had told me ten years ago I would never have believed them because I’d been working in Marks & Spencers in sales for 11 years. I decided that I wanted a change and around the same time I had a cousin who had an accident and we did a lot of caring for him. From that I ended up doing a short period of volunteering with Headway – the organisation for people with brain injuries.

I suppose this gave me the interest in the area and as I’d left school with 2 GCSES, when I saw the job and realised that it didn’t require high entry qualifications, I went for it. I had done some NVQs and City and Guilds in retail, but this was definitely a very different direction.

I’ve been involved in UNISON since I started and as a union they are very strong on learning. When I first heard about Return to Learn, I thought it was a good opportunity to get a qualification particularly when the Trust was supporting it with release and it was free. I don’t have GSCE Maths and thought this would help. I particularly wanted a qualification which would help move on in care because my qualifications were in retail.

I applied with a colleague, but she didn’t get chosen for it, so I ended up going on my own. But I needn’t have worried, we all got on really well. English, Maths and Computers are the three main areas. In English I enjoyed the descriptive writing and the research, because it’s all related to your life experiences. The Maths was basic, it was a matter of trying to remember how to do it, but it was definitely easier to learn it as an adult. The computer skills were very basic, I had some self taught knowledge but some people there didn’t even know how to turn it on and they really got a lot out of it. Overall the course did wonders for my confidence. When I first started I couldn’t even remember how to spell, but by the end of it I felt like I’d swallowed a dictionary. We all ended up getting a lot more than out of it than we ever expected.

The residentials were great – loads of information – we did case studies – we did role plays and had to see things from other perspectives. We did team building outdoors and it was fantastic. We were with the group from Down Lisburn Trust and it was good to meet people from other places. Deirdre the tutor was great, she pushed you to your limit but was really encouraging, she never put you down – you wanted to strive to do your best. There were people who hadn’t been to school in 40 years, but it was okay to say that you didn’t understand something and she’d go over it again.

Before you commit yourself, you need to understand the amount of work you have to do in your own time. But you enjoy doing the work, because it’s all to do with life. Even your Maths, it’s costing out a day trip to Scotland, not working out some seemingly irrelevant formula. I was encouraged to work towards the Level 3, and I worked hard towards that. It’s great to get a qualification which I enjoyed doing. It was that enjoyable that I don’t think I realised the hard work I was doing until afterwards.

I’m currently on the Open University K100 Understanding Health & Social Care course. When I heard about it from a colleague, it seemed like the next step. I was particularly attracted to it because it was an access course that could open doors and enable me to progress towards social work. Also the fact that it was backed by the Trust and by UNISON and that the learning took place on site.

The brilliant thing is that it’s all to do with care, so you can always relate it to your work. It gives you a completely different outlook on scenarios. We looked at case studies on heroin users, on the vulnerability of single parents, an insight into the way the whole care system works. The course material is absolutely fantastic, you get cassettes, videos to support the learning. It does take you a while to get into the mode of how to use the materials most effectively.

I think it’s really interesting because it’s based on real life case studies. It’s made me look at my job differently, look at different situations, it widens the picture such as - what all is involved in putting together a care package, it opens up your outlook on how care happens, why it happens and what are the consequences when it goes wrong. We did a module on the role of GPs, I presumed that everyone has a GP, but you need an address to have a GP and not everyone has an address. Everyone should have the right to care but circumstances mean that people often don’t get it. As a course it really challenges you, you see where you fit in to a much bigger system, it has made me step back and think, not judge too quickly.

It’s a tough course, there are seven assignments and one exam, which was very daunting at the beginning. You do feel under pressure and you have to learn to break down the information. If you haven’t been at school for a long time, it’s a shock to suddenly have to put together 1500 words. But the feedback has been fantastic, you have to use it and learn from it. The standard is much higher than Return to Learn, you are expected to do a lot more self study. You have to be disciplined, you have to fit in the study and the reading, they recommend 14 hours per week and that’s not an exaggeration.

Right now, I’m trying to get my head around the exam in June, getting and holding the information in my brain. UNISON and the OU organised an Exam preparation and revision day which was very good, it made me more relaxed, I have a better idea of what to expect and that I don’t have to revise absolutely everything.

It’s been a great group, we all really support each other and most people have teamed up with others for support in between tutorials – I think it makes a real difference to have a great group. Everyone is equal, it doesn’t matter what people work at or what qualifications they already have.

I would definitely think about another Open University module. Even though I’d have to pay for it myself, the fact that I can get 10% as a UNISON member and then pay for it over ten months means that it could work out about £45 a month, which makes it more do-able. But right now I’m focusing on studying for my exam.