Jo Shirley, Senior Professional Development and Learning Manager, Skills and Education Group

In the week a BBC investigation finds that well established signs of slavery were missed for more than four years when a gang forced 16 victims to work at a fast food outlet and a factory supplying products to major UK supermarkets, our Senior Professional Development and Learning Manager, Jo Shirley, explains how education is key to avoiding exploitation in the workplace.

Every individual deserves access to fair work and be free from exploitation. In 2023, the Skills and Education Group partnered with the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) to develop and implement a course designed to make exploitation in the workplace easier to identify.

The course equips participants with crucial knowledge about their rights and protections in preventing labour exploitation and human trafficking. It explains what exploitation and modern slavery is and who is most at risk; the different types of employment status and accompanying contracts; employment rights, and pay and salary – including a breakdown and explanation of everything you’ll see on a payslip.

The course was based on the pre-existing and award-winning Level 1 Award in Workers’ Rights and Labour Exploitation qualification developed by the GLAA and Skills and Education Group, and was piloted in February and March 2023.

We targeted the course at the Romanian community in the UK as they had been identified by the GLAA as being particularly vulnerable to potential exploitation.

Following a hugely successful pilot period – where after 100% of the attendees rated it ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’, we received funding from the UK Government Modern Slavery Fund to develop the course further, translating it into Romanian and making it free of charge for Romanians living in the UK to attend.

With continued support from the Romanian Embassy in London and the Consulate General of Romania, and the Romanian and Eastern European Hub, the course is currently being delivered to Romanians in the UK by fellow Romanians who have already attended the course and achieved the qualification.

To develop the project further we collaborated with FE Tech to create an online version of the course, developed in Romanian, so that Romanian-speaking people in the UK and Romania could have remote access. Now, FE Tech, in collaboration with Skills and Education Group, has been shortlisted for the prestigious Learning Technologies Awards 2024 in the ‘Best Use of AI in Learning category’.

Most important of all though is the impact the course has had on those who have completed it. We are proud to say that past participants say they are now able to confidently challenge employers regarding minimum wage, holiday entitlement and contracts of employment. They are also able to share the information with family and friends and are able to recognise signs of modern slavery.

This course can readily be made available in other languages and is free to access.  Get in touch to find out more.