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Fantastic event last night organised by Learning Unlimited on a new toolkit aimed at volunteers Supporting newly arrived people. My initial thoughts on the toolkit, including my recollection of feedback from the delegates and organisers: - really good resource, volunteers who attended and had no ESOL training loved it! - really clear lay out and well organised - it’s in different languages and raised awareness of lives and issues of refugees - it offers some practical activities (downloadable in pdf and word!) which can be adapted Areas for improvement include: - very little in the pack around supporting emotional triggers, those of us who have worked directly with refugees and asylum seekers have developed strategies for supporting learners bursting in to tears or having an angry reaction or emotive reaction. True that it’s impossible to predict what would trigger someone but I think if a new toolkit is being developed, it would totally benefit from working alongside counsellors and wellbeing professionals - total omission of sexual orientation and gender identity- a substantial proportion of refugees and asylum seekers flee persecution on those grounds. Some people in the room seem to believe that people married with children could not be gay, failing to understand that in most country that is one of the survival strategies, very disappointing to see. I would like to use this opportunity to signpost you on to the Rainbow Pilgrims project currently running a ground breaking heritage project looking at the collection of stories from LGBTIQ + people and which will have some teaching resources coming out soon https://www.rainbowpilgrims.com/ - there’s a useful links to resources on the pack which list many of the usual suspects such as ESOL Nexus and English my way, The list however forgot to mention the Welcome to the UK pack produced by learning unlimited who were involved in the production of the resources for the UK. Overall a good resource if you are new to ESOL and teaching and want to support a vulnerable group. Very well attended and organised event by Learning Unlimited The pack can be accessed on this link https://www.coe.int/en/web/language-support-for-adult-refugees Laila El-Metoui LGBT Education Consultant & Teacher Educator https://lelmeducation.wordpress.com<https://lelmeducation.wordpress.com/> Member of Action for ESOL http://actionforesol.org/ and NATECLA London https://nateclaldn.wordpress.com<https://nateclaldn.wordpress.com/> Supporter The Ruth Hayman Trust http://www.ruthhaymantrust.org.uk<http://www.ruthhaymantrust.org.uk/> Sent from iPhone *********************************** ESOL-Research is a forum for researchers and practitioners with an interest in research into teaching and learning ESOL. ESOL-Research is managed by James Simpson at the Centre for Language Education Research, School of Education, University of Leeds. To join or leave ESOL-Research, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ESOL-RESEARCH.html To contact the list owner, send an email to [log in to unmask]