Skills Champion
Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) is proud to offer the opportunity for community groups and local businesses (with five or more employees or volunteers) the chance to apply for a £1,000 grant from its UK Shared Prosperity Fund and become a Lincolnshire Skills Champion.
The Skills Champion concept builds on the Multiply Champions programme that was funded by DfE from 2022- 25 to support numeracy skills development. As shown in this evaluation, the Champions were able to make a significant contribution, and so Lincolnshire is expanding its Champions from just numeracy to include literacy and digital skills as well.
This opportunity is looking to fund Champions across literacy, numeracy and digital skills and recognises that delivery in the community is key to helping people have the confidence to engage with learning opportunities. The grant will need to be used to understand, encourage, promote and support literacy, numeracy and digital skills (Essential Skills) development within the workforce or local community.
What is a Champion?
The Champions’ role is to promote and support literacy, numeracy and digital skills development for employees or individuals in the local community and / or their organisations. Champions are focused on improving confidence in everyday skills through a range of innovative activities.
Champions will also encourage progression into accredited courses by working with Adult Learning providers and will be supported by LCC to do so.
How can a Champion help to promote literacy, numeracy and digital skills?
Each Champion organisation can do this in a way that best fits their skills and abilities and the needs of their audience and the £1000 grant on offer aims to support the time, patience, energy, enthusiasm and creativity involved in being a successful Champion as well as the time and cost of complying with the monitoring requirements.
You can embed the learning of these essential skills into important practical day-to-day activities such as:
Cooking
How to calculate weights, measures and cooking times. How to read recipes and follow the instructions.
Shopping
How to budget for your weekly shop and calculate the best deals whilst shopping.
Crafting
Working out the resources needed to create crafting pieces such as a blanket, candles or jewellery.
Gardening
How to calculate the volume of plants you can grow within a certain space.
Community Clubs
Organise a book club to promote reading or events like book swaps, reading marathons, and storytelling sessions to create a culture of reading and learning within the community.
Digital Workshops
Organise workshops or create resources to promote basic digital skills or look at the latest developments in Outlook, Word, Excel or PowerPoint. Microsoft 365 also has newer apps such as Planner and Loop which could help people to plan tasks more effectively or Sway which helps to create interactive presentations such as newsletters.
Digital Literacy
Offer workshops that teach digital literacy skills can help community members navigate the internet, use digital tools, and access online resources, thereby enhancing their ability to participate in the digital economy.
How will Champions be supported?
We will hold regular LinknLearn networking workshops over Teams throughout the year which we strongly expect Champions to attend. These offer an opportunity to collaborate and share innovative ideas with other Champions to take away and implement.
Which Champion could you apply for?
Organisations will be able to apply for a Literacy Champion, a Numeracy Champion and/ or a Digital Skills Champion.
Organisations can apply for a maximum of 4 Champions in any combination.
Are there other benefits to the Programme?
The Champions programme helps to get learning into local communities and can be delivered at a pace to suit your learners.
Learning through Champions boosts learner confidence as it’s delivered in a relaxed environment and could encourage further learning to develop real life skills.
Opportunities could be available for Champions to develop partnerships with our Adult Learning Providers who could provide learning within your workplace or community venue.
How do we apply?
Funded through the UKSPF, the grant operates over a one stage application process by the submission of a full application. Applications are now open and the application form can be accessed here. Applications will close on Wednesday 10th September at 11.59pm, with funding decisions communicated in September. Successful applicants will be required to provide bank details at this stage to facilitate the award of the grant.