This vital project enables people to develop their literacy and numeracy skills in the safe environment of personal tuition at Caring For Life. Eleven tutors currently teach sixteen young people, providing them with 45 minutes of individual help every week. Although the facilities are limited and tutors have to use CFL’s Refectory/dining facility, with privacy only provided by screens, and with frequent interruptions, some amazing work has been done.
Several men and women have learned to read and all have benefited enormously be increasing their self confidence and also their sense of self respect. As a result, young people have been able to take part in Christmas reviews and other fun occasions, reading out passages, singing along to songs and taking part in drama, having been able to read their lines for the first time.
Many have written articles for our own Crag House Times, which is produced by the Wordshop team and others have written articles and posters to go up in the Refectory on the display boards.
This project was set up and is still run by volunteers, all of whom are retired people. This is a tremendous example of older people helping troubled and vulnerable younger people, relating to them, becoming a special friend and enabling them to gain vital life skills. It is a truly successful model project, of which we are very proud.
The tutors have been supported in their work by the kind voluntary assistance of an educational psychologist, Gayle Nixon, who has spent time undertaking formal assessments of the young people, providing information which has helped the tutors to understand an individual person’s learning needs. She has also provided training, as has another consultant who is an advisor to teachers in special education, David Ryan.
Supporters in the USA recently provided a whole set of right up to date teaching aids, which are a tremendous benefit to the tutors.
