edgeachievers

edition 28

August 2016www.t2group.co.uk

Inside This Issue

10 Ways to motivate yourself - See inside for details

INSIDE

CALENDAR OF HEALTH & WELL-BEING

GLOBAL EVENTS

E-cigarettesFind out more

inside this issue

Refugee Footballers

InformationSecurity

Prevent

On? 4 – 7 August Welsh Super CupScouts from clubs such as Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool to name just a few will descend on Cardiff in search of the new super stars of the game.

6 August Total WarriorTotal Warrior is the pinnacle of obstacle racing providing the greatest courses set in the finest venues.

20-21 August V FestivalThe V Festival is a yearly music festival held on the last weekend of August in England.

1-4 Sept OktoberfestOktoberfest with live music and great atmosphere. 2016 more than 6,000 revellers will enjoy the relaxed fun atmosphere of this unique experience.

3 Sept The Great River Race330 crews from around the globe race through London Docklands.

7-18 Sept ParalympicsMost excitement from Rio. Best of luck to team GB.

8-11 Sept The Bestival Music FestivalTakes place at Robin Hill Country Park near Newport on the lovely Isle of Wight.

1 October - World Vegetarian Day is observed annually around the planet on October 1. It is a day of celebration established by the North American Vegetarian Society in 1977 and endorsed by the International Vegetarian Union in 1978, “To promote the joy, compassion and life-enhancing possibilities of vegetarianism.”

1-12 October - Manchester Food and Drink FestivalTaking over central Manchester for 12 days, visitors to Manchester Food and Drink Festival can choose between the likes of street food fairs, wine tasting and cake sales in Albert Square.

What’s Calendar of

ESDGC and Equality & Diversity Global Events2016

August

5-22 The Olympics1 International Beer Day2 International Youth Day3-9 Seventh Meeting of the Regular

Process for World Ocean Assessment

9 International Day of the World's Indigenous People

13 International Lefthanders Day19 World Humanitarian Day23 International Day for the

Remembrance of the Slave Trade & its Abolition

30 International Day of the Disappeared

September

5 International Day of Charity 5-9 Global Green Growth Week 2016 8 Nativity of Virgin Mary – Christian

International Literacy Day10 Waqf al Arafa (Hajj Day) – Islam

World Suicide Prevention Day15 International Day of Democracy 18 World Water Monitoring Day 21 International Day of Peace 20 Leaders’ Summit on Refugees 22 World Car Free Day 26 International Day of Languages28 International Right to Know Day,

Freedom from Hunger Day

October

Black History Month National Depression Awareness

Month 1 Older People’s Day2 National Grandparents Day3-7 National Work Life Week 3-9 Dyslexia Awareness Week 10 World Mental Health Day 13 World Sight Day 22 International Stammering

Awareness Day 24-30 European Health & Safety Week

Health and Well-being eventsAugust, September & October 2016

WABA World Breast feeding Week1-7 August

International Youth Day12 - August

Urology Awareness Month1-30 September

National Blood Cancer Awareness Month1-30 September

World Suicide Prevention Day10 September

Sexual Health Week12-18 September

National Eye Health Week19-25 September

Jeans for Genes Day23 September

World Heart Day 29 September

Care Awareness Week3 - 7 October

National Personal Safety Day 7 October

OCD Awareness Week (part of awareness month)9 - 16 October

World Mental Health Day10 October

National Arthritis Week12 - 18 October

World Thrombosis Day 13 October

Easy Yet Highly Effective Ways to Keep Motivated

1. Make a to-do list. You’ll feel encouraged as you cross off items

2. Start exercising, and you’ll feel like yourself

3. Take a small step. You don’t have to immediately immerse yourself in the project and see it until completion right away. Just make baby steps, and take it one day at a time

4. Get the hard stuff done first thing in the morning. Once you’re done with the most challenging projects, you’ll be able to tackle the others with ease

5. Clean up your home or your workspace, and you’ll feel like you can get more done in a decluttered environment

6. Focus. Doing too many things at once can overwhelm you, so drop the multitasking and focus on one thing at a time

7. Stay excited. Experiment and keep coming up with new tweaks so you won’t get bored

8. If you fail, pick yourself up and keep going. Don’t let it derail you or cause you to lose confidence, which ends up affecting your motivation

9. Remind yourself that it’s better to try and fail than living with the regrets of not having tried at all

10. Know that only you have the power to create your dreams and generate motivation

10

Sunil Singh, Age 17Apprenticeship - Recruitment AgencyNVQ L2 - Recruitment / Business Admin

Unhappy with his initial decision to join 6th form, Sunil came to t2 to improve his GSCE grades and pre-apprenticship training, to make sure he had what was needed to successfully apply for an apprenticeship as a ‘recruitment consultant’.

“Over all I wanted to go into a recruitment apprenticeship because I get a buzz from it - filling places, gaining new jobs from clients , its a bit of a competitive apprenticeship, you’re always on the go, a constant buzz

and excitement whilst working in recruitment. I do enjoy it and it was a very good decision, and great that t2 helped progress

with my Maths and English knowledge to be able to get this position.”

I am the apprentice. I am there to learn the business and really get a good insight in to what the business is about. t2 has been extremely supportive since I’ve started and getting calls form t2 to check I’m getting on OK and progressed to a good level.

Radicalisation and Extremism Prevent StrategyPreventing people from being drawn into terrorism has never been more important. In August 2014 the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) raised the threat level to severe, the second highest level, in response to the heightened threat facing the country.

It is important that everyone understands the need to safeguard individuals from harm, and the risk from radicalisation of any type is no different.

Possible signs of radicalisation include:

• The individual’s views become increasingly extreme regarding another section of society or government policy

• They are observed downloading, viewing or sharing extremist propaganda from the web• They become withdrawn and focused on one ideology• The individual becomes increasingly intolerant of more moderate views• The individual may change their appearance, their health may suffer (including mental health) and

they may become isolated from family, friends, peers or social groups.• The individual expresses a desire/intent to take part in or support extremist activity

Building resilience is one of the critical elements of ensuring individuals have the mental capacity to think critically and say no or seek advice. It is about strengthening critical thinking skills so that individuals are less likely to accept information without question. It’s also about providing a safe place to discuss issues relating to extremism, such as the psychology of radicalisation, and explore politics or religion in a balanced, non-extremist manner.

Online radicalisation, either through accessing inflammatory material or through online grooming, is an increasing danger. This means that even organisations in remote rural areas, which may have never witnessed any extremism previously, cannot afford to ignore this issue.

While some might think that individuals would not choose to access extremist material via the IT systems of their education and training or work organisation, evidence would appear to be to the contrary. Online safety does not mean automatically referring a learner if they have searched for something potentially dangerous. It may be nothing, but that should trigger in your mind that there might be things afoot. Some of this material is extremely sophisticated and those who are vulnerable may not have developed the critical thinking skills to analyse the content.

If you are interested in learning more about radicalization we have an online eLearning session that is available on the t2knowledgebank.co.uk or you can view the full prevent strategy on the government website www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97976/prevent-strategy-review.pdf

If you have concerns or questions in relation to the prevent strategy please contact Sian Prigg, t2 group Safeguarding Officer to discuss.

Calendar of

ESDGC and Equality & Diversity Global Events2016

Health and Well-being eventsAugust, September & October 2016

Refugee Footballers With the popularity of football at an all-time high in the UK, we thought we’d explore the struggles and contributions refugees such as Mario Stanic - former footballer with Chelsea. (who used to play for Sarajevo F.C. who were targeted during the Bosnian War) and Christopher Wreh - former Arsenal player and Liberian refugee have had in British football.

In an IPSOS Mori Survey carried out with refugees in 2010, 42% of respondents said that football was one of the three things they like most about living in Britain. This was slightly behind ‘the British people’ and just ahead of ‘multicultural society’. It will be interesting to see how these figures change with the swing in origin of refugees and the uplift in popularity of football over the past 5 years and certainly Wales recent success at the European cup.

A refugee is a person from another country who has been given permission to remain in the UK for their own protection. An asylum seeker is a person who has applied for protection and is awaiting a decision on this. People are forced to leave their homes and seek protection for many reasons:

• Political protest • Civil War • Ethnic minority in their country • Religious persecution • Infringement of civil liberties

Most refugees seek sanctuary in neighbouring countries but some travel much further in the hope of greater protection. The UK is home to under 2% of the world’s refugees – out of 16 million worldwide – amounting to less than 0.5 % of the British population.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to work until they have been given permission to remain. They have to live on £35/week. Asylum seekers do not jump the queue for council housing and they cannot choose where they live. The accommodation allocated to them is not paid for by the local council. It is nearly always ‘hard to let’ properties, where other people do not want to live. 75% of asylum applications are initially refused. 28% of those decisions are changed following an appeal. This means that for more than 1 in 4 people who are told, ‘No, you’re not eligible for protection here,’ the decision is found to be incorrect. In 2009, more than 1,000 child asylum seekers in Britain were being held in detention centres awaiting removal from this country due to their appeals for asylum not being strong enough.

Refugees have been coming to Britain to seek asylum for many, years; arguably since the 17th Century. In the first half of the 20th Century, significant numbers of refugees were welcomed to Britain seeking sanctuary from fascist regimes dominating other parts of Europe. Some of the earliest refugees to play in the English football league were those from the Basque Country in Northern Spain and Hungarians following the 1956 uprising. Recent years have seen many regions of Africa involved in war and internal or external conflict, from the seven or so countries directly involved in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to the Sierra Leone crisis and the civil war in Somalia amongst others. This has resulted in over 9 million refugees and internally displaced people throughout the continent in the last decade.

Some of these refugees have found their way to Britain to play as professional footballers. Lauren, whose family had to flee to Cameroon from the dictatorship in Equatorial Guinea before moving to Spain when he was three, spent six years at Arsenal. His club colleague, Christopher Wreh, had to bribe military guards to help him leave Liberia, aged 14, when civil war broke out.

Saido Berahino came to Britain from Burundi via Tanzania, Alhassan ‘Al’ Bangura fled Sierra Leone to avoid being involved in rituals linked to the practice of witchcraft and Lacine Cherif escaped civil war in Ivory Coast. Two countries from which many refugees in Britain originate are the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia, some extremely well known players coming from the former and potential new stars from the latter.

The likes of Lomana Tresor LuaLua, Calvin Zola and Fabrice Muamba also escaped to grace English football.

Fabrice Muamba a professional footballer at Bolton Wanderers and is one of England’s most capped players at Under-21 level. He came to England in 1999 as a refugee, aged 11, from war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Calvin Zola-Makongo fled the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with his mother in 1999 and was granted asylum in Britain. He was signed by Newcastle, spent a season on loan to Oldham, then played for Tranmere in Division 1 for 4 seasons. Crewe then bought him and in 2011 he moved to Division 2 side Burton Albion.

Liban Abdi Born – 1988 (Burco, Somalia) Liban Abdi is thought to have been the first Somali to become a professional footballer in England when he signed for Sheffield United in 2006

Pedram Ardallany Born – 1989 (Tehran, Iran) Partick Thistle.Kicking off Refugee Week in 2008, Ardallany said,

“Refugees don’t choose to leave their country. We are forced to do so for reasons beyond our control. Football has been a great way for me to integrate into Scottish life. It is a universal language that people speak all over the world, no matter where they are from. I admire the Scots passion for football and am grateful for the welcome they have given me here.”

Lacine Cherif Lacine – Rangers _ Kilmarnock - fled from the bloody civil war in the Ivory Coast when he was just 12. The conflict began in 2002 between the government in the south and rebel forces in the north. Thousands of civilians have been killed and many children were press ganged into joining the armed rebels. When the rebels tried to snatch Cherif to force him to join them, his father tried to protect him, and as a result was murdered in front of Cherif.

Alhassan ‘Al’ Bangura A midfielder from Sierra Leone, Bangura made his first team debut for Watford aged 17 in 2005. He went on to captain Watford and helped them win promotion to the Premiership in 2006. Bangura fled Sierra Leone aged 15 to avoid being forced to join the Soko secret society after his father’s death. At a tribunal, he said members of the society threatened to kill him if he didn’t take part in their rituals, which included mutilation.

He lived on the streets in neighbouring country Guinea until a man offered to help him get to Europe. This man turned out to be a ‘sex trafficker’. Bangura said he was taken to a house in London where two men tried to rape him. He escaped and found his way to the Home Office to seek asylum. He was granted permission to stay in Britain, but only until he was 18. When he reached 18, he applied again for refugee status. His application was refused, but he was granted a work permit which allowed him to work in the UK for a limited period.

This was unusual, as normally footballers only qualify for a work permit if they have played for their country, and their country is in the top 70 in the FIFA rankings. Bangura’s case was helped by a huge campaign by Watford fans, the club and the local MP. Over 18,000 fans of both clubs at a Watford v Plymouth match held up posters of Bangura under the words ‘he’s family’ and chanted his name. In 2009, Bangura had a loan spell with Brighton, before joining Blackpool of the Championship on a free transfer. Blackpool released him in 2010, and spells playing in Turkey and Azerbaijan followed. He returned to England in 2011.

Saido Berahino Born – 1993 (Burundi) – West Brom ( England )Berahino grew up in Burundi, which has been the scene of ethnic violence between Tutsi and Hutu people since the 1990s. He lived there as a refugee until his mother’s claim for asylum was approved in 2003. He was then able to join her in Birmingham.

Kler Heh, who is from the oppressed Karen ethnic group, grew up playing football on the streets of the Umpiem Mai refugee camp on the Thailand-Burma border and never dreamed he'd be in the position he finds himself today.

"You can't really get out, nobody has a passport to go into Thailand and go out like a normal human would," Kler explained to Reuters.

The few refugees that have made it as professional footballers in Britain are lucky that their considerable talent has been recognised and an opportunity to earn a good living is available to them. Despite wanting to positively contribute to the British economy and live as normal a life as possible, asylum seekers are not allowed to work while awaiting a decision about their case. It is a situation that can take months or sometimes years. They must rely on State handouts or they risk prosecution and removal.

For refugees who have been given permission to stay in this country, finding work is also difficult. Often highly skilled in their own country, qualifications are not recognised in Britain and previous experience ignored. Many asylum seekers come from countries where there is no welfare state and they find it deeply shaming to be forced to rely on what they see as charity.

The biggest obstacle facing people displaced by conflict is resurrecting some kind of normal life in a country that has different customs and where they do not speak the language. Since 2007, free English as a Secondary Language (ESOL) classes for asylum seekers has been effectively withdrawn despite increasing demands that for ‘integration’ and ‘citizenship’ refugees should learn English and contribute to society.

What British football has achieved over the past twenty years in terms of welcoming diversity, tolerance, and understanding is an example of how diversity enriches all our lives.

CREDIT: www.furd.org

E-cigarettes are devices that give you a nicotine-hit by heating up a liquid which you then inhale, have become all the rage in the UK. A few years ago they were a rarity, but now there are nearly three million e-cigarettes out there. Many people think that they are as bad for you as normal cigarettes. But are they?

Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you and can lead to lung cancer. It also increases your risk of dying from a range of other conditions including heart attack, stroke and dementia. If you're a man you might like to know (but then again you might not) that smoking is one of the main causes of impotence.

There is of course the enormous cost of smoking, B&H kingsize at £9.80 a box, 20 a day costs £3540 / yr, there is the personal cost of the financial side effects smoking has on your financial ability to do something beneficial for yourself – we can all imagine what we good could do for ourselves with this level of cash not to mention the freedom it gives you back, not just the time ‘smoking’, but the movement to a smoking area to smoke AND the planning and buying cigarettes and lighters.

Fans of e-cigarettes say vaping can reduce the burden of smoking, not just the act of smoking but by making it easier for smokers to quit or by providing them with a safer way for them to get that nicotine hit. Critics, however, say that we are gambling with a technology we don't fully understand and that there is still no convincing evidence that e-cigarettes help people quit smoking. It may even encourage non-smokers to start, especially with the young. Some countries have warily embraced e-cigarettes, while others have effectively banned them.

The UK has so far adopted a fairly liberal approach, but new European legislation has come into force which will limit the size of refills and the nicotine content of the fluids. Vaping will become more restricted.

So, who's right? Are e-cigarettes one of the greatest public health measures ever invented, with the potential to save millions of lives, or are they just another cunning way to keep us hooked on nicotine?

The scientific consensus is that vaping, at least in the short term, is a lot safer than conventional smoking. A recent study for Public Health England concluded that e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than normal cigarettes. And surprisingly, that although cigarettes are highly addictive, nicotine alone may not be. Although no-one knows for sure yet, research in animals suggests that nicotine is far more addictive when delivered in combination with the other chemicals found in regular cigarettes.

…so one thing is for sure the future side effects of vaping will not be as bad as the current ones from cigarettes.

Nicotine in its pure form could have an upside. There's evidence it can help patients with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The National Institute on Aging in the US has recently funded a trial of 300 patients with mild cognitive impairment (a precursor to Alzheimer's). The patients, none of whom are smokers, will be randomly allocated to either nicotine patches or placebo patches. Over the next few years they will have regular health checks, as well as memory and cognition tests. A similar, smaller study, published in 2012, found that non-smokers given nicotine patches saw improvements in memory, attention and reaction times.

But before you start slapping on the patches or firing up an e-cig you should be aware that though nicotine may help people who already have impaired memory, there's

no evidence it will help the rest of us. The main health justification for e-cigarettes is that they can help those who are keen to quit smoking tobacco, so do they? There have been very few randomised controlled trials, but the ones that have been done suggest it does. When Horizon conducted a small study where they randomly allocated a group of hard core smokers to either e-cigs, nicotine patches or simply giving up (going cold turkey), they found the vapers and those who slapped on the patches were far more successful at abandoning their cigarettes

There is a huge amount at stake. A billion people worldwide spend around £500bn a year on cigarettes and around half of them will die of smoking related diseases in the UK the government receives around £12bn in tax (50 – 85% tax it charges on tobacco products.) and VAT It is projected that the current cost to the NHS of treating smoking related illness is around £6.2bn, which is where smokers get there argument that ‘smoking pays for the NHS’ ( currently £116bn ) but there are of course wider costs to the public purse to be considered. While smoking has a direct impact on the NHS, it can also be said to have an indirect impact on society more widely (for instance, fire services need to be called out to incidents caused by smoking and ill health can result in lost productivity at work). The think tank Policy Exchange made an attempt in 2010 at quantifying the wider costs, coming up with a £14 billion total (including the £2.7 billion estimate of NHS costs). This is an uncertain estimate since it's based on estimating lost economic output from workers dying early from smoking-related conditions (£4 billion) and even taking smoking breaks at work that non-smokers do not (£2.9 billion). In the UK alone smoking kills around 100,000 people a year. Anything which gets people off cigarettes is going to save a lot of lives.

H e a l t h a n d W e l l - b e i n g

e-cigarettes

CREDIT: Michael Mosley, WHO, Full Fact

IDENTITY AND SECURITYINFORMATION SECURITY

TIP: It only takes 10 minutes to crack a lowercase password that is 6 characters long. Add 2 extra letters and some uppercase letters and it could take up to 3 years to crack that password. Add 1 more character and some numbers / symbols and it will take 44,530 years to crack!

Imagine discovering your personal data had been compromised and first hearing about it on the news… that was the situation of more than 150,000 TalkTalk customers that fell victim to the widely publicised data security breach in October. In this case, it was reported that 10% of TalkTalk customers had their bank account details accessed by online hackers.

• Information security issues usually occur as a result of human behaviour, so could TalkTalk have avoided this damaging data hack by implementing a better system of measures?

• Of course ‘data security’ is IT centric, but it’s not simply an IT issue. Keeping learners and clients safe requires an organisation’s physical and technological systems to be ‘joined-up’ for optimum protection. Followed correctly, businesses could avoid incurring debilitating data breaches, while providing their customers and learners with the duty of care they have a right to expect.

• The cost of crime for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) can be equally as devastating and long lasting, with “over half (51%) of SMEs in the UK having been targeted by cyber-crime; costing owners a collective £25million [ADT]. Such Information Security breaches could be largely avoided by implementing the ISO 27001 standard; ensuring certified organisations avoid having to break the bad news to their customers or suffer the damage to their reputations and profits.

• Cyber-crime may not be able to be eradicated but it can be drastically reduced by adopting proven checks and measures. That’s why t2 is committed to adopting safeguarding best practice to stay safe online and utilise the benefits of implementing the ISO 27001 standard.

It’s a big topic, and one that t2 are on top of. We take the Safeguarding of our learners and staff very seriously and the protection of personal information and correspondence is key factor in that.

We have begun the process of acquiring the ISO 27001 standard, it helps us define what our security policies are and making sure you get the best guidance on how to adhere and administer them.

With the long term objectives to migrate to digital portfolio and evaluation systems, ISO27001 could well be the corner stone for t2 to be able to qualify as a one of the first ‘digital’ service providers. Improving security, improving quality, cutting costs, and saving trees.

An important aspect of standard is reporting. We are all realistic that errors and mistakes can happen to the best of us, but we must make sure that any incidents or even near misses’ are reported honestly and accurately, and the reporting is accepted as best practice ! not reporting issues is the ‘offence’ reporting should be considered a standard operating procedure.

Learners Message

• t2 takes the security of our learners personal information very seriously.

• We have safeguards in place to protect your personal information.

• t2 is working towards a recognised security standard called ISO27001.

• Meeting this standard means another organisation will review and monitor how we manage personal information.

• This is part of our commitment to continue to improve the ways we safeguard you and your information.

The ISO Standard (27001)We will keep you up to date with security bulletins – especially over the September training

Recommended watch: BBC 1’s Panorama: “How hackers steal your ID”

Not happy with something ?Let us know how we can improve !

We are always open to suggestions to how we can improve, let us know at improve@t2group.co.uk

Anyone’s suggestions which are implemented will receive a £20 Amazon voucher.

/t2apprenticeships /t2apprentice

Head Office Melrose Hall, Cypress Drive, St Mellons, Cardiff, CF3 0EG

Tel: 02920 799 133 Fax: 02920 819 515 Email: info@t2group.co.uk Web: t2group.co.uk

Numeracy challenge

t2 recommend that learners undertaking numeracy qualifications with us, complete the ‘numeracy challenge’ this can be found on the t2 web site

www.helpwithenglishandmaths.co.uk

This is an excellent resource to help you improve your numeracy skills. As the 12th to the 18th is ‘Know your Numbers Week’, why not undertake the numeracy

challenge and have a look at the page on the benefits of upgrading your numeracy skills.

Need extra help and advice?Visit the t2knowledgebank.co.uk

knowledge bank

Your interactive resource portal

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