Doncaster Council Adult Education Fund to deliver non-credited courses within the Doncaster area

The decision to shut down the Cascade Hub and, instead to work directly in the community, was due to a few of the learners having problems having no monies for bus fares and not being able to get to the Hub.

One of the ladies was travelling from Thorne. She had been arriving at 7:30am to complete her 35 hours a week of job searching and writing in her working journal for the job centre. She phoned one morning saying that the job centre had not paid her bus fares into her bank account. She got very upset because the following week, the same thing happened again: no monies for her bus fares.

She went to the job centre and was told that they had proof that they had paid her, but as she is on the new Universal Credit Benefit she had crisis loans due to the five weeks waiting and also paying back an overdraft facility, there was no money left.

This dear lady was devastated that she could not continue with her learning. She had been to many places in Thorne to learn how to read and write, but nobody had been able to understand her way of learning.

The new direction for the Cascade Foundation is to go directly to the people who need us, and not wait for them to come to us.

Our funding was to deliver 90 courses. We had taught 36 courses and we were told that we could take our courses into the community over the Summer holidays. This was brilliant news and something that had never been done before with this type of funding.

We were given access to the Riverside Homeless centre in Doncaster, the People Focused Group (PFG), St John the Evangelist church in Balby and referrals were also received online and Facebook. As a result, we have 29 courses running this Summer. We are now working with other local centres to deliver our courses and training for the future.

Our learners and volunteers will be helping us to deliver our courses. They have all been DBS checked and their understanding of their own disabilities has given them the knowledge and empathy to be able to become a peer mentor. They can provide support, compassion and encourage others to have a better understanding of their different ways of learning ensuring that no one is left out.

Watch this space to see how our learners and volunteers develop over the Summer of Learning!

 

The Duke of York’s Community Initiative: presentation at the Mansion House

Katy Turner, the Voluntary, Community and Faith Sector Coordinator for Doncaster Council, invited the Cascade Foundation to give a presentation for The Duke of York’s Community Initiative at the Mansion House with community groups within the area.

In 2017 we won this award by writing the top social fund bid for the Efficiency North grant. This automatically put us through to the Duke York’s Community Initiative. We were then judged by two board members who visited the Cascade Hub, speaking to our learners, trustees and two of our contract holders.

After winning, we had a day at Sheffield Cathedral where we met the Duke of York along with 59 other community groups. It was such an honour and we were very proud to take two of our learners; it was just a joy to see them laughing and taking to Prince Andrew.

This event at the Mansion House was to talk about our experience of the process and the wonderful day we had meeting the Duke of York with a view to engaging other community groups to go for this award.

We had 15 learners turn up to share their stories about the work that took place at the Cascade Hub. Our founder Jackie spoke for 45 minutes about how the charity has developed and grown from prisons, job centres, special units and the first prototype Cascade Hub, within a six year period.

Malcolm was the first to speak about his life before Cascade. He talked about how he could not read or write and how his learning has given him the confidence to stand up and speak. Jean, Dean, David and Roisin also spoke with so much passion and love for the different way of learning and how all of their lives have changed.

Our new project ‘Who Cares if you have an invisible disability?’ is now being rolled out into the community, and our learners are helping to deliver this project. With the knowledge and understanding of their disability, they will be cascading the learning into different areas of Doncaster.

To have 15 learners show up and support us was just great. They were able to share their knowledge with people they have never meet before and that was wonderful to watch. Seeing how far they have travelled on their journey of learning and self-esteem is extremely rewarding.