Learn English at Home in Hounslow

This year has been an exciting one for LEAH, as we have started to work for the first time in the Borough of Hounslow. As I write, six of our fantastic team of trained and experienced volunteers have been paired with clients in Hounslow, and have embarked on a year-long journey of weekly home visits to provide language support bespoke to their client. A huge thank you to Anna, Julie, Jill, Lynn, Jeanette and Kim and several further volunteers waiting in the wings to be paired in coming weeks. We are also hugely grateful to our funding partners at the London Borough of Hounslow and the Rayne Foundation.

LEAH has been supporting ethnic minority adults with low levels of English in Kingston since 1982, and we have been working for over 10 years in Richmond. It’s therefore a big moment for us as a small organisation to be beginning work in a new Borough, but we are ready! We have an experienced team of committed staff and trustees and strong systems in place for training and supporting volunteers which mean we are prepared for the challenge. But more than that, we know the work we do is really needed by vulnerable, isolated people (all women to date) in Hounslow.

“It’s exciting to be LEAH’s first ever volunteer working in Hounslow. I can really see the need for LEAH’s work in the borough” Anna, LEAH volunteer. 

ESOL support bespoke to the starting point of the learner and involving 1:1 buddying or mentoring, like that offered by LEAH, has been identified as best practice in low-level language learning (DEMOS, 2014; Greater London Authority, ‘English for All’, 2012), yet there is noone offering this kind of support in many London Boroughs including Hounslow. Our partners in Community Partnerships and Lifelong Learning at the London Borough of Hounslow confirm that there are residents not able to access local education services, often the most vulnerable. Hounslow has high levels of inward migration (30% of households do not have English as a main language) and has 16 pockets amongst the 20% most deprived in the country (using the Indices of Deprivation), compared to 1 such area in Kingston and none in Richmond. 

The picture that this data paints has very much been confirmed by our experiences of working in Hounslow to date. In Kingston and Richmond, we have developed and far-reaching referral networks, including GPs, schools, midwives, health visitors and others. In Hounslow, we started by developing relationships with health visitors alone, and in three months received more referrals than we can support in our initial pilot of 20 clients. What’s more, these clients are highly vulnerable, not only being isolated and with low levels of English as all our clients are, but almost all facing additional challenges including having been trafficked to this country, being victims of domestic violence,  having children with special needs, or living in real poverty without access to public funds. 

As Louise, LEAH’s Head of Programmes puts it “At LEAH we are used to working with very vulnerable clients, but we have really noticed a difference in Hounslow. This has put pressure on the team at LEAH because for every client we’ve worked with referrers and other partner agencies to ensure the client is hooked into the support they need and that the setting is safe for our volunteer. It’s also been emotionally hard work, seeing clients living with distressing situations. However, we are all finding it hugely motivating as well. It’s always true that our clients need our support, but this is even more so with the clients we are working with in Hounslow”. 

Anna agrees that she can really see the difference she makes in working with her client: “N was trafficked to this country and lives in a hostel with her young children. She often cancels at the last moment, and has a lot going on in her life, so progress is slow. But she’s really keen to learn and I’m very glad to be working with her, because she has no family support in the country”. 

It’s just the start of LEAH’s important and challenging journey in Hounslow, watch this space to hear more about our work in LEAH’s third London Borough and what we learn from it. 

Kate Brown, LEAH Director 

Casey Review calls for more investment in English language learning

LEAH's work was given further endorsement yesterday by the Casey Review which states that 'English language is a common denominator and a strong enabler of integration'.   

Dame Louise Casey goes on to call for additional funding for the promotion of English language skills empowering marginalised women, promoting social mixing and tackling barriers to employment for most socially isolated groups. It also recommends that we 'Reduce economic exclusion, inequality and segregation in our most isolated and deprived communities and schools, by improving English language provision through funding for community-based classes.'

At LEAH, we experience first hand the difference learning English can make to women's lives both in our 1 to 1 and small group community classes.

Client T.T. ‘Now I feel more confident when I see the doctor or meet parent in my children’s school.’

Client T.A. ‘At school I have to speak English… At (the) doctor I now speak if my son is sick, it is important.’ 

Client J.A. ‘(I’ve made) very good friends now.  (If) my daughter (is) not well…I go to (the) pharmacist on my own’.

LEAH conversation class client. "We learned a lot from each other..developing our knowledge not only of British culture and lifestyle, but also traditions and customs of other countries". 

LEAH helps women from over 30 different countries and when ready (usually after a period of 9-12 months with a 1 to 1 volunteer) brings them together in small classes with creche facilities to help them improve their practical language skills. By enabling friendships to develop where communication is through English, the common language of both parties, we provide yet further opportunities for language skills to be practised and developed. Meeting women from other cultures also reminds us that despite our different languages we are in many other ways much alike, especially for example where our children are concerned. As LEAH's Patron Dame Jacqueline Wilson commented following her visit to one of our literacy classes "It was heart-warming to make friends with such a diverse and determined group of women and to realise how much we all have in common in spite of coming from different countries and cultures."