While training budgets may never appear to go far enough, Blackpool council has proved that with a lot of careful thought they can stretch further than anyone might have dreamed.
Sure Start childcare manager Sue Flintoff says that the need to increase the children's workforce became a pressing issue when Blackpool's local Sure Start programme and children's centres began to take off. 'The first step was to analyse how childcare NVQ training was being delivered and how candidates coped,' she says.
Every candidate who had enrolled over the past three years was contacted, and asked about his or her experiences. Responses highlighted three main issues related to non-completion - how students struggle in the early stages with the language used in NVQs; their confusion over how to assemble portfolios of work; and the length of time they had to wait between assessment visits.
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