Participants graduate from GHWY’s Care to Go Higher CPD programme
Participants of GHWY’s Care to Go Higher CPD programme graduated earlier this month (July) with an online ceremony and certificate.
27 key influencers of children in care from across four different West Yorkshire local authorities successfully completed the course. Now in its second iteration, the six-month programme was run online as a result of the pandemic. It is designed to equip participants with the knowledge to support their young people to make informed choices about their educational progression.
The graduation event was attended by Jancis Andrew, Leeds Virtual School Head and Chair of National Association of Virtual School Heads, and Helen Sykes, Go Higher West Yorkshire Partnership Manager. Both congratulated the participants for completing the course and emphasised how programmes like this are important to improve higher education participation rates for children in care.
Participants were invited to reflect on the course as part of the last session and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. One person said: “I’ve found the programme so inspiring. I’ll be encouraging my young people to go to university now and I’m going to look into studying myself part time.”
Another individual said: “I have found this course very useful. I think that there are a lot of grey areas in HE that young people pick up on as they go through school. It is a great resource to help them make the right decisions for them and also help us adults support them in the best way possible!”
Staff members and student ambassadors from GHWY’s partners took part in the live sessions, shared their experiences and knowledge of higher education, and answered questions from course participants. These talks were blended with presentations, group discussions and activities to form a series of interactive online sessions.
Members of the cohort took part in surveys and gave feedback throughout the course that will allow the programme to be evaluated, with the results compared with the in-person pilot course that was delivered last year.
GHWY would like to thank staff members in local authorities and our HE partners who helped to recruit participants and deliver the programme. We plan to continue this work as part of our approach to improving access to higher education for care experienced young people. Look out for details of the next version of the course taking place.
