The purpose of this paper is to engage critically with debates surrounding the mental health and wellbeing agenda for adult community learning (ACL), with particular consideration of creative arts provision. It draws on a qualitative research project involving five creative arts ACL groups in the English West Midlands and two mental health…

Governmental agendas to improve the emotional wellbeing of our children and young people (CYP) by providing more mental health support in education have gained more attention in recent years. This renewed focus comes in the aftermath of COVID-19 and is couched heavily in repairing the mental health fallout from the pandemic. Whilst these…

Recently, society and further education institutions have seen an increase in the reporting of poor mental health and wellbeing. Although further education settings (typically comprising of study programmes ranging between levels one to six, including A levels, apprenticeships, T levels, GCSEs, BTECs and higher education qualifications) are…

Learning through life, for any reason and none, improves work, health, wellbeing and active citizenship. We've known the benefits of adult education for a long time -- at L&W we've been promoting them and making the case for widening access to learning for the past 100 years. Social prescribing to adult education could be a key tool to address…

Supporting individuals' progression into, and completion of post-compulsory education is a key strategic policy of the UK government. However, the number of learners withdrawing from Further Education (FE) prior to qualification completion has been highlighted as an area of concern within the UK. Consequently, we aimed to explore why learners…

There is a need to provide mental health professionals in training education related to sexual health from both a medical model and through the lens of an expanded definition of sexual health, which includes but is not limited to sexuality, sex concerns, sexual intimacy, sexual frequency, and other sex topics beyond a sexual medical health model…

Adult education is concerned with the redistribution of resources and the recognition of rights held by citizens and to have these rights respected (Honneth, 1995). Mental health is an important domain of rights that are disrespected and unprotected by the state. This article reflects on herbal medicine as a practice in adult education in response…

The aim of this uncontrolled interventional study was to determine the effect of a yearly educational course within the University of the Third Age on quality of life, life satisfaction, sense of coherence, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, attitudes toward old age, and older people's perception of social support. The population included 121…

The quotation in the title from a college leader is a stark reflection of the experience of the Further Education (FE) Sector during the COVID pandemic (2020-21). Traditionally regarded as a poor relation of the English education system, evidence from Sector sources suggest that the five COVID harms identified through a scoping review of the…

This paper explores the pivotal role of arts-based adult community learning (ACL) in the UK, highlighting ACL's broader impacts on well-being, including social, emotional, and mental health, and belonging for diverse groups of adult learners. ACL has a social role at individual and group levels; future research might tackle the latter potential in…

Building resilience is a key concern for adult educators today as we face unprecedented global challenges such as the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). Nowhere is this more apparent than in educational initiatives with health professionals who experience many stressors in their work, now amplified by the pandemic. This paper reports the results…

The purpose of this memorandum is to clarify how funds provided under the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), Title II of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), may be used to pay for the costs of child and dependent care and transportation when adult learners need this assistance to participate in adult education and…

This paper follows on from the previous bulletin (Redford 2020), which covered the education remit of the Parliament's Education and Skills Committee between February and August 2020. This bulletin covers the Education remit of the Education and Skills Committee from September 2020 to February 2021. [For the previous bulletin (v52 n2 2020), see…

The central theme of this paper is about providing opportunities for the participants to discuss sensitive issues in a safe environment with the researcher and group, actively listening and making meaning from their creative efforts. It introduces a creative research method used to provide a medium for adults to discuss a sensitive issue. The…

Older adults' participation in the University for the Third Age (U3A) positively influences their physical and emotional well-being and thus increases their quality of life. However, the number of the elderly participating in the U3A has remained low in China, especially in rural areas. This study explored the factors influencing older adults'…