As we enter the second lockdown in England, we are reminded of how far we have come this year and how many challenges the region has overcome, in order to continue to support branches, activists and members throughout this time.
In these uncertain times, it is not clear when it will be safe to return to the classrooms. Our priority is to ensure that members and staff do not risk their health to attend training. Whilst face to face training is out of the question for the forseeable future, we’re proud of how our education team has responded to the challenge of developing an online programme to ensure that members and activists can still access trade union education.
As the region embarked on a campaign to recruit Health & Safety reps across the region, the education team were working behind the scenes to develop a series of webinars to give these new activists the skills and information they needed quickly, in a rapidly changing situation.
Sam Raymond, Regional Education Officer told us:
“We have trained 53 Health & Safety Reps from the start of the pandemic. There will be another 3 courses running between January 2021 – April 2021 with a webinar to explain the importance of being a H&S Rep in the workplace in early January 2021. In addition, 90 stewards have been trained, with a further 20 registered to attend a course starting next week.
“My team have worked tirelessly to ensure education has moved seamlessly from being classroom based to virtual courses using a variety of tools from workshops to webinars. Working with branches and organisers has at times been very demanding in terms of tight timescales to ensure the materials are relevant and current, but we have relished the challenge and are currently putting together a series of webinars for January and February 2021 on the theme of self-care, my team are amazing and I am grateful for their hard work and dedication.”
South East Education has developed a full programme of online courses for members and activists. Find out more