Breathe – Further Education Development Project

This 2010-3 project aimed to support colleges to strengthen their provision for spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, using the interactive ‘Breathe’ resource and other approaches. The project was developed by Dare2Engage and WM Churches’ FE Council.

This project, which ran from 2010 to 2013, sought to increase the support given to further education colleges to resource the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of students, and to increase partnership between churches and colleges in this work. One dimension of the project was to offer colleges the opportunity to use the Breathe resource http://www.breatheresource.org.uk/ developed by Dare2Engage as an interactive medium for students to explore questions of belief, journeys and values through meditations and activities. Besides this, conversations took place with colleges on the extent of their current provision for students’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, and what kinds of other resources and training might be needed. The project was funded by the Council, Dare2Engage, St Peter’s Saltley Trust and Central England Quakers, with work undertaken by project officer Andy Haynes, a former manager of a construction training centre and consultant on faith-based entrepreneurship.

As a direct result of Andy’s work, West Midlands Churches’ FE Council began a series of training events for colleges designed to grow the skills and confidence of college staff in handling faith and spiritual development matters within college. You can read more about these on the website of the West Midlands Churches’ FE Council www.wmcfec.org.uk/for-colleges

The project also identified the need for a new approach to the development of SMSC resources for 16-19 settings, to address the changing ways in which SMSC provision was made within colleges, and the need to develop resources which could be delivered by non-specialists as well as specialists. Work is underway of a prototype of these, and progress can be followed on the website of the WM Churches’ FE Council.

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