Learn Telford was chosen as one of the sites to participate in the CLMHR funded by the Department for Education (DfE) over two years from 2015 to 2017 and recieved around £200,000 of funding from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) to do this.
The aim of the CLMH research was to explore whether taking part in adult and community learning courses could improve people's mental health. The findings of the national research are due to be published around Easter 2018 and we will provide a link to this document when it is available.
Locally the research data suggested that our Learning for Wellbeing courses were very successful at improving our learners' wellbeing.
The legacy of this research is two-fold in Telford, in that we are continuing to offer the wellbeing courses we developed for this research and you can see these courses here. Also, our service lead Richard Probert (Adult and Community Learning Manager) is studying for a doctoral research degree and is developing pioneering research within the service.
Richard Probert our Adult and Community Learning Manager, was recently asked to deliver a webinar about his ongoing research for the Department for Education (DfE) and World Mental Health Day 2017 (WMHD).
You can access the boxset of WMHD 2017 webinars about mental health and wellbeing at this link.
Richard's webinar is also available below.
Learner participation in research is always entirely optional, and learners can also choose to opt out at any point even if they have previously decided to take part.
Through our pioneering ongoing research we hope that we can demonstrate further how effective our learning provision is at supporting local people to maintain or improve their mental health wellbeing. We are grateful for everyone that participates in our research opportunities, and the help that they provide in doing so.
Richard is keen to engage with others who share an interest in research surrounding mental health and wellbeing in education and he can be contacted via Learn Telford at support@learntelford.ac.uk or on 01952 382888.
At Learn Telford we believe that everyone has mental health, just like everyone has physicial health.
If you broke your arm, or got the flu, you wouldn't think twice about telling other people that you were in pain or felt ill. We believe that people should be able to talk as openly about their mental health and wellbeing too!
Mental ill-health is, unfortunately, seen by many people as a taboo subject that should not be talked about. People who have mental ill-health often feel that if they talk about it, they will be judged negatively by others, so they often hide their issues.
However, the more we all talk about it, the more we can provide help and support to those who need and want it. We believe that no one should face discrimination for the way they feel.
At Learn Telford we will endeavour to challenge the negative stereotype and stigma that surrounds mental ill-health and we hope all our learners and the wider community will support us in this effort.
