South Gloucestershire and Stroud College
About the college
South Gloucestershire and Stroud College is a large college offering a wide range of
provision, including vocational courses, apprenticeships, GCSEs, A-Levels, adult learning
and Higher Education programmes, to over 8,500 full-time and part-time students. The
college has six campuses; four in Bristol, one in Stroud and one in Berkeley. Their students
are mainly local and come from the three local authorities covering Bristol, South
Gloucestershire and Gloucestershire, but some travel from South Wales and North
Somerset.
Prior to their involvement in the project, the college had been undertaking some work to
review and improve their support for young adult carers. The Deputy Head of Learner
Services of the college’s Bristol campuses had worked with the local Carers Support
Network to review and update the college’s policy on young adult carers. The college had
good links with the Carers Support Network, who attended their freshers fair, sent the
college awareness-raising materials and also ran some training with college staff. The
college also included a tick box for young adult carers on their application forms for courses
and for the 16-19 Bursary, and were starting to receive referrals from the Carers Support
Network.
Despite having some good support in place for young adult carers, the college felt that, in
places, this was quite disjointed and that they needed a consistent approach to identifying
and supporting young adult carers across the college. They also felt that they could make
more of their external links with local carers services and improve the awareness of young
adult carers amongst staff working in different curriculum areas. Another key aim for the
college was to improve their monitoring of their identified young adult carers, to inform where
additional support may be needed.
Provision for young adult carers
The college found the QSCS framework very helpful in enabling them to make their support
for young adult carers more explicit to both students and staff. For example, although the
college had designated leads for carers, their names and contact details were not promoted
anywhere, and students and staff were unclear about the support they offered. Through the
project, these staff were able to add their details to the college website, the student
magazine and posters which were put up around campus. They also developed promotional
materials and presentations, used these on Young Carers Awareness Day and linked
through to them on the college’s SU Facebook page.
The college also met with local carers services to discuss and agree information sharing and
referral processes for young adult carers. Although the college had previously received
referrals from these services, these agreements formalised these processes across the
three local authorities that most of their students come from.
To ensure that their support reflected young adult carers’ needs, the college ran a ‘Voice Of
The Learner For Young Carers’ session. These groups provide opportunities for students to
provide feedback on their experiences and feed into the continuous improvement of the
support offered by the college. The Learners Services team ran a session specifically for
