Personal circumstances

Pursuing specialist qualifications often requires learners to balance their studies alongside a variety of personal and professional commitments. From managing family responsibilities and full-time job roles to dealing with long travel times, financial constraints, and scheduling conflicts, these factors can create significant barriers to learning and progression.

This section explores the real-life challenges faced by learners navigating specialist training alongside, often complex, personal responsibilities and considers how training providers can be more flexible and supportive in meeting the diverse needs of learners.

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Challenges:

  • Time poverty
    Learners juggling family responsibilities, work demands, and personal obligations often struggle to find time for study and clinical training.
  • Balancing job role and new learning
    It can be difficult for learners to manage the demands of their existing clinical role while also meeting the expectations of a specialist qualification.
  • Isolation and lack of peer support
    Busy schedules and remote learning can lead to feelings of isolation, making it harder for learners to access support or share experiences with peers.
  • Difficulty building community in a diverse cohort
    Creating a sense of connection and collaboration is challenging when learners have varied backgrounds, schedules, and levels of engagement.
  • Travelling time 
    Long commutes for academic learning or clinical placements add time burdens that can disproportionately affect some learners.
  • Disengaged or frustrated learners
    Without adequate support or flexibility, learners may become disengaged or demotivated, especially when training clashes with other life pressures.
  • Timetabling conflicts
    Rigid schedules that don’t account for other commitments can create barriers to participation and add unnecessary stress.
  • Impact on financial situation
    Additional costs for travel, accommodation, childcare, or unpaid study time can place financial strain on learners, especially those in part-time or lower-paid roles.

Suggestions:

Peer support forums - create structured peer support networks, such as WhatsApp groups, online discussion boards on in-person meetups to offer learners a sense of community and provide space to share resources, ask questions and offer encouragement and reduce feelings of isolation.

Grants or bursaries - provide targeted financial support, such as travel bursaries or grants for essential equipment helps remove economic barriers to participation.

Group activities - collaborative learning activities such as group case discussions or project-based learning (whether in-person or virtual) can encourage interaction and strengthen peer relationships, whilst also building key teamwork and communication skills.

Different modes of delivery - offer recorded lectures, podcasts and other asynchronous content that allows learners to engage with content at their own pace and on their own schedule.

Accessibility of assessment - consider whether remote assessment can be offered and still meet the requirements of the curriculum. 

Buddy system - pairing less experienced students with a more experienced peer promotes informal support and guidance and allows the sharing of tips on managing study and clinical work.

Proactive provision for support - adopt a proactive approach by signposting support early and often. Improved personal tutor contact, regular check-ins and enrolment questionnaires that help identify potential barriers. This allows timely interventions and builds trust between learners and course teams.

Flexibility from academic providers regarding time restraints - offering options such as deadline extensions, deferrals or alternative assessment timings can make a significant difference to learners who may be trying to balance their studies with personal responsibilities.

Remote access to pastoral support - making wellbeing and pastoral support available via video calls, emails or drop-in sessions ensures all learners have access to help regardless of their location or schedule.

Support with time management - providing workshops, resources and one-to-one coaching on time management and organisational skills can empower learners to better balance their competing responsibilities.

Flexible learning formats - provide a mix of in-person, recorded lectures, podcasts and other asynchronous online materials to accommodate different learning preferences and schedules and give learners more control over when and how they engage with content.

Supervisor training - ensure that staff are equipped with tools to recognise and support learners facing personal challenges and that they are able to refer learners to appropriate support services.