Annette talks about some learners with mental health problems who attend her IT course.
Annette:
I'm Annette Brown, I'm an IT tutor and I work for Kingston Adult Education. The course that I teach in the library is a new start course which is for people with mental health issues. One of the learners that comes in was very nervous when she first started and had actually not been out for a number of months, possibly longer, but she came along to get some kind of routine into her life, she has actually come along and she enjoys quite a nice little social group now that we have. Her IT skills have picked up so much that she is now very interested in taking part in an accredited course. Another gentleman that we have, when I first met him he would not interact at all. He would come in and he uses the virtual training suite because that's 'his thing' he doesn't really like any communication with the teacher at all. This particular gentleman over the months has blossomed and it has taken a year and he will actually come in and speak and say "hello how are you?" and take a bit of an interest. One of the parts of the course is that we do encourage them to go on to other education as well and he has actually enrolled for an arts course at North Kingston centre now.
