North Lindsey College 'Pride Project': Organic developments during November

In the second week of November our project group consisting of staff and learners met again to move forward on determining the content of the LGBT 'Good Practice' Guide. Once again the 'Professional Dialogue' template was used in order to ensure that all voices were listened to within the group and to enable a final product that was truly a collective one. Each member of the group worked as a contributor to each of several smaller sub-groups. These groups produced a series of responses relating to what the project output might be, what strategies would be used in terms of process development, risk identification and future monitoring. Out of these responses a collective report was produced which will now act as a 'map' for the next all-day session (Dec 2nd) when group members will 'zoom-in' on specific themes and develop detailed content in order to map out the final output design to be produced from January onwards. This really is an organic process in which the final product is gradually taking shape not as the result of one voice taking control but as a result of all voices making their own contributions heard. Here is a summary of the collective responses from the second meeting which will now 'drive' forward all future stages:

Outputs

What will we produce?

A PDF e-guide containing:

‘Theme’ pages: each page or set of pages to have a specific focus theme relevant to the LGBT community within and outside college

Each page to contain hyper-links to audio and video interviews with members of the LGBT community and others

Each page to contain hyper-links to NLC Moodledefinition page and other ‘Help’ sites

Information pages to include activities developing the themes which could be used in settings such as Tutorials and during induction (ie quizzes and other activities)

‘Poster ‘pages: the content of each theme to be summarised in a set of poster pages with relevant hard-hitting facts which can also be displayed throughout college on plasma screens

Strategies

What are we going to do?

Liaise with relevant individuals, groups and organisations within and outside college in relation to the content within the e-book (ie text material, audio and video interviews, etc.).

Work with Design department at NLC to ensure visual impact of posters and other content of e-guide during e-guide production stage

Produce Rainbow ‘Z’ cards with relevant links to complement the e-guide

E-guide advertised in all college marketing literature with bar-code scanner

To launch the e-guide simultaneously with a college ‘Pride’ event in 2014 complemented by a number of curriculum area toolkits for staff and management

What might help?

Advice from ‘critical friend’

Support and advice received from external agencies

What might get in the way?

Negative attitudes from staff and students

Ensuring project is kept within budget

How will we know progress is being made?

Analysis of future data from Student Services re. instances of reported homophobic bullying

Feedback from learners at Learner Focus groups