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Ms Suzanne MaskreyBrightside
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Dr Tessa StoneBrightside
Project overview
This project aimed to help student parents make the transition from further to higher education by delivering personalised, flexible support to them through an innovative mentoring framework.
The project’s website, studentparents.org, was launched in 2010. It continues to provide a range of online information and tools including:
- Budget calculator with information about financial support and tools to build their own budget
- Tips on preparing for higher education, including time management, childcare options and study skills
- Case studies from students already balancing higher education with parenthood
An evaluation report summarises the findings of the project, which involved five sets of FE colleges and HE institutions in England.
The project team found it difficult to assess the impact of the mentoring across the whole cohort due to lack of participant engagement in the evaluation. This lack of engagement was mirrored by low engagement with mentoring by most participants, and therefore conclusions cannot be drawn about the helpfulness of intensive and long-term mentoring for student parents at times of transition.
However, the ongoing popularity of studentparents.org suggests that easily digestible information, which requires no ongoing time-commitment, may be better suited to this busy and over-burdened group of students.