Family Learning Partnerships

Purpose of the guidelines

These Guidelines provide the Expression of Interest process for the Adult, Community, and Further Education (ACFE) Board’s Family Learning Partnerships (FLP) program and an introduction to the program’s purpose, overarching model and expected outcomes.

Background

Many adult learners are faced with multiple complex challenges which hinder their readiness to participate in education. These challenges comprise a mix of emotional, financial, or skills-based barriers including physical and mental health issues, unemployment, substance abuse and family violence. Furthermore, those in vulnerable or disadvantaged family contexts experience disproportionate barriers in accessing education, often influenced by considerations such as children or other relationship factors.

Research shows that family learning approaches, focused on addressing families’ needs by reducing barriers to education, have demonstrated success. High parental engagement in education produces positive outcomes for children, transpiring in a ripple effect. This not only directly improves standards of living and wellbeing for the family, but also exposes children to a positive culture where education is valued.

The FLP program is aligned with the ACFE Board’s strategic plan 2020–2025 in supporting parents as learners experiencing educational barriers and helping break the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage by building and brokering partnerships through strategic collaboration.

Through FLP the ACFE Board assists families to overcome barriers to participation in training and education and provides opportunities for families to engage in positive learning experiences and to gain the confidence and skills they need to take their next steps in education or employment.

Program aims

The Family Learning Partnerships Program aims to assist families that may be experiencing educational barriers by:

• Instilling a culture of learning within families and communities and empowering and building the confidence of learners to make informed decisions regarding their own educational and employment experiences.
• Improving educational pathways for families by addressing barriers hindering participation in education, training and employment.
• Facilitating participants’ progression to further education such as pre-accredited or accredited Programs or employment where appropriate.
• Fostering a collaborative approach to education through building provider capacity to form partnerships with other community organisations and services to support pathways to further education and employment for families.
• Assisting Learn Local Providers in gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the unique learning needs of families that may prevent them from engaging and developing initiatives and tailored strategies to support them.

Key outcomes

• Addressing barriers to learning and engaging parents who may be experiencing educational disadvantage.
• Contributing to improved practice in the delivery of pre-accredited training by engaging learners and addressing barriers to learning.
• Using formal and informal learning activities to help learners to start a pre-accredited pathway to further education and employment.
• Growing collaborative partnerships between participating Learn Local Providers, community-based organisations, and other educational and employment services.
• Developing effective, long-term and sustainable learning models that can be shared with the sector.

Provider eligibility

To be eligible for funding for the ACFE Board’s Family Learning Partnerships Program, providers must meet the following criteria:

Note: ACFE Board Registration does not guarantee funding.

Note: The financial report upon which the BGS assessment is completed must also be submitted with the BGS assessment.

For information on registration with the ACFE Board, see Become a registered Learn Local provider on the Vic Gov website.

For more information about the BGS assessment process, see Business and governance status assessment on the Vic Gov website.

Participant eligibility

To be eligible for funding for the ACFE Board’s family learning partnerships program, providers must ensure that participants meet the following conditions.

Eligible learner

Learner eligibility is conditional upon Table 1 and Table 2 below. For a learner to be eligible, they must meet one of the criteria in Table 1, regarding both citizenship or permanent residency, and age requirements. However, the learner will be ineligible should they fall within any category in Table 2.

Table 1

Note: If documentation confirming citizenship or age is unavailable, an authorised delegate of the training provider can grant eligibility on face value, via interview. See the below factsheet:

Table 2

Ineligible if in one of the following categories: