SCLA Story
SCLA was born out of two sides of the same emotional coin: frustration, anger, sadness on the one side, and on the other side passion, drive and determination to take action for positive change.
Frustration, anger and sadness, built up over many years, at seeing so many people held back, set back or simply stuck in life: unable to find their best selves and overcome barriers to realise their potential.
Frustration and anger at so many people put into negative categories (or ‘tick box silos’) and judged by society without people seeing the potential within them.
Sadness at so many people not seeing and realising the potential within themselves to change their lives for the better.
Sadness at seeing so much wasted human potential and the cost of that for individuals and society.
Frustration that so many people were not being given the opportunity to see and realise their true potential: be self-determining rather than feeling that their lives are ‘controlled’ by circumstance.
From work with all ages and backgrounds, I could see that many people needed the opportunity to develop the core essentials that equip us all to be self-determining and thrive. This fuelled my passion, drive and determination to take action and practically do something more about this.
My passions are learning and people (…and sport!)
When I founded SCLA, I had been developing my personal development programme, equipped2succeed for many years, identifying the core essentials we all need to succeed and thrive in life and creating the learning that enables individuals to develop these. The equipped2succeed framework underpins our work with groups and individuals and the focus of this, and all our programmes is enabling people to build and maintain holistic wellbeing: personal, social, learning, health (physical and mental) and economic wellbeing.
Leading learning with diverse communities and communities of need I have seen real transformation in people given the opportunity grow, (and wanting to grow). I have seen many, many people of all ages overcoming huge personal setbacks and barriers to succeed and thrive in life.
I have also been fortunate to work on developing learning with organisations in northern Scandinavia. This is where I came across the phrase ‘second chance learner’. It resonated with me. Rather than limiting people who need help by putting them into categories a second chance learner is anyone held back or set back in life and I we’re all second chance learners at some point in our lives.
If we want a thriving cohesive society, why put people in boxes? Yes, as individuals we may have specific needs that need to be addressed, and we help people access specialist support outside our expertise to support their journey.
However, when it comes to working on ourselves, we are all people first and we are all the experts in our own lives. Our background stories don’t need to define where we can go, and we don’t need to be tethered by feeling the need to regurgitate negative life histories, repeatedly. We can’t change the past. We can change the future. It’s about moving forward.
Our vision for SCLA has always been empowering, enabling and equipping second chance learners, whoever they may be, to be self-determining and thrive, and that is what we do.
Frankly, if I’d compromised on this and agreed to being seen as an organisation for … a ‘social category’… of people we may have thrived as an organisation sooner, as funding tends to follow pre-determined boxes, unlike individuals who are all unique. That wasn’t going to happen; we do not focus on any ‘social categorisation’.
The diversity of our team (in every sense of the word diverse) and the learners we serve is testament to the values and vision we started to establish at our first meeting, where a few of us gathered round Harriet’s table in her flat in Hyson Green in February 2014. We are using all our resilience and enterprise skills to grow slowly and organically: with the incredible talents, skills and experience of our team building year on year and living our core values throughout.
Beverley Burton
Founder and Chair of Trustees