The Hastings Project: An innovative parental engagement programme

White working class young people are less likely to progress to higher education than any other group in the UK (boys especially, although girls aren’t much further ahead) and Widening Participation teams across the UK are working to change this.

In September 2018, as well as focusing on white WP* students, KCLWP was looking to expand its national outreach. I researched commutable places outside of London with low progression rates to higher education and high proportions of white WP residents. Hastings seemed to make perfect sense—it had already been identified by The Department for Education as an Opportunity Area in 2017, highlighting the need to improve the town’s educational outcomes and job opportunities and it was close enough for frequent day trips.

Researching Hastings equipped me with lots of demographic data, but it wasn’t until I travelled there that things started to fall into place. I met Sally Greig, one of the directors and founders of Eggtooth who collected a colleague and me from the train station and took us on a whistle-stop tour of Hastings. (I can’t summarise Eggtooth’s incredible work in a few snappy sentences so please visit their website to learn more.) Sally introduced us to a primary school headteacher, a local councillor, an Eggtooth parent programme graduate and many more community stakeholders. I adapted community organising techniques learnt from Citizens UK (together we run the award-winning Parent Power programme) to run a mini listening campaign through relational, one-to-one conversations.

I quickly discovered that generosity and willingness to help were abundant in Hastings; we learnt more from two days talking to its residents than from countless hours reading online reports.

Many themes emerged from our conversations but three were absolutely crucial:

1. Earn people’s trust: Don’t just dive into the Hastings community and expect people to listen to you.
2. Start small: Work with a small group at first to perfect your approach. Large errors could risk undoing initial good work.
3. Create something sustainable: Hastings has had its fair share of short-term grants and well-meaning community engagement projects. One-off projects can do more harm than good.

These three points became my golden rules, my non-negotiables to inform all future decisions, alongside our departmental values of Innovation, Collaboration and Empowerment.

Golden rule one: Earn people’s trust

How did I earn trust quickly? Well, in part by proxy. Hastings trusts Eggtooth. No doubt about it. People have witnessed almost ten years of their positive impacts on the community. By working with a trusted organisation, I had a better chance at developing a successful project.

Together, we designed a programme for Hastings parents, perhaps unimaginatively titled The Hastings Project. Thankfully, the name was the only unimaginative part. The 9-month personal development programme comprised:

• An initial overnight stay in Hastings—like a school trip but just for adults,
• 28 weekly sessions delivered by Eggtooth—creating a safe space to explore their educational experiences and build relationships,
• 8 six-weekly sessions delivered by KCLWP—focusing on higher education,
• 4 community-based learning experiences—including running a restaurant for a day and completing East Sussex fire and rescue training,
• A final overnight stay at King’s College London—giving the parents and their children a first-hand experience of university.

The project aimed to develop parents’ knowledge of higher education (to pass onto their children) and increase their confidence in navigating such a complex system. We designed an outline for the project but didn’t spend too much time on the details—we knew these would emerge from participants’ specific needs.

Golden rule two: Start small

Sally invited parents to an information evening at East Sussex College. The requirements were that neither they nor their partner had been to university, they had children at school, and they were interested in learning about higher education. Of the 15 parents who came to the information evening, 12 signed up for the programme.

Our overnight stay in Hastings in November 2019 developed the bond between and amongst parents and facilitators. In Mallydams Wood, we took part in search and rescue training and learnt to make stretchers, start fires and administer emergency first aid. We didn’t talk much about higher education but instead shared a delicious meal cooked by a local chef and belly laughed over silly party games. This set the tone for the next nine months.

Sally and Eggtooth co-facilitator, Ali Mooncie, began hosting weekly sessions at East Sussex College, inviting parents to share their educational experiences. Some parents felt they had been let down by the system and, until enrolling on the Hastings Project, didn’t have the safe space nor the support to express their disappointment and frustration. When one parent shared, others followed, and before long, the group dynamic was open and supportive.

I travelled with colleagues to Hastings every six weeks to deliver higher education sessions on everything from the nuances of the student finance system to the nightmare that is university jargon. Parents asked questions without fear of judgement and talked to me about their children’s individual situations.

When the first lockdown struck, the week before we were due to run a restaurant for a day, we paused the project for three weeks and took stock. We then decided to organise weekly Zoom sessions and 8 of the 12 participants continued to take part. (Sally and Ali kept in touch with the other four to make sure they were ok.) Each session began with a ‘check-in’ to gauge how we were all feeling—sometimes we were in the mood for an activity, other times we just wanted a chat. I continued delivering higher education sessions but we also organised fun activities like quizzes, art class and cook-alongs.

COVID-19 changed The Hastings Project. We cancelled community experiences and the parents missed out on a much-anticipated trip to King’s. But we adapted accordingly and engagement remained high. I was worried that going virtual would prevent us achieving our aims but, as you can see from the project report, this was not the case. 100% of parents said they would recommend the programme to others and their knowledge of higher education skyrocketed.

I am proud of The Hastings Project because it proves that authentic community engagement works. Even though cohort one has officially graduated, we still meet on Zoom to catch up every few weeks and some parents are keen to be ambassadors when cohort two begins.

Perhaps the most exciting outcome of all is that two parents have enrolled on higher education courses and another has embarked on an access course. Our intention was to help parents help their children but seeing the parents themselves thrive is wonderful.

Golden rule three: Create something sustainable

Encouraged by the success of the first year, KCLWP have decided to continue The Hastings Project, now tentatively titled The King’s Egg. Although cohort two is delayed due to the current lockdown, we are looking forward to meeting a new group of parents who will no doubt be completely different to the first. After all, programme participants are individuals who cannot be defined by demographic data.

If you want to know what communities really want, the first step is to ask them and the next is to listen.

You can start by listening to the parents from cohort one of the Hastings Project in this video.