Last year, Deaf Umbrella found out about a company called KTG who offer a variety of self-study training to people meeting certain criteria. Deaf Umbrella asked who would be interested and I was of course on board.
There were a few courses that I was interested in but I decided to pick the Equality and Diversity Level 2 course which I completed in December.
Equality and diversity is a part of everything in society but specifically relates to my role as a Communication Support Worker (CSW) since I meet a wide variety of people on a day to day basis with different backgrounds, cultures, values, needs, etc. As a CSW, I thought I would really benefit from this training and could apply it to my working life.
Once we had all decided on a course, a KTG induction trainer came to the Deaf Umbrella offices to provide us with the tools and materials to complete the course. This came in the form of a textbook with all the information you need to pass the course and log in details to access your online account. We also had to undergo an initial assessment for Maths and English to assess if we would need additional help on the course. Unfortunately, I never received my results, even after requesting them. Lastly, we were told a tutor would be in touch and if we had any questions or trouble understanding the material we could contact them.
The assessment consisted of a vast amount of questions which you could complete either online or by paper form. The information was well presented and easy to understand but the assessment had no room for your own initiative – Everything had to be answered by what was in the textbook. Although this made answering the questions fairly straight forward, I felt as if I was a tape recorder repeating information rather than having my own thoughts and creating my own answers. That aside, I learnt a lot, it opened up my mind and I got a real insight into what Equality and Diversity really means and how it can impact society.
Before starting this course, I did not realise how detailed this topic is. I have had in-house training on Equality and Diversity previously where I have understood the law with regards to this topic but this course really opened up my mind to the impact diversity has on society. With a wide variety of people in a community, the array of knowledge and experience is vast which ultimately contributes to a society rich in creativity, mindfulness and intelligence. I have experienced this first hand and was able to recognise this for what it was due to having completed the KTG course. One experience stands out whereby I was supporting a student who was working on a group project. The student’s experiences as a Deaf person gave the group members a real insight into accessibility and this is what they focussed their research on – if the Deaf student was not part of this group, they may never have thought to include accessibility in their research.
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