Bishop Auckland College adopts early Oliver McGowan training to boost inclusivity
Bishop Auckland College Group has become one of the first education providers in the country to roll out the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism for its staff.
Delivered by local social enterprise Hiyed CIC, the training is named in memory of Oliver McGowan, an 18-year-old autistic man with a learning disability and epilepsy.
Oliver died in hospital in 2016 after being administered antipsychotic medication against his and his family’s explicit warnings.
His preventable death sparked a nationwide movement, leading to mandatory autism and learning disability training across the health and social care sector in November 2022.
While the training will not become mandatory for education staff until 2028, Bishop Auckland College Group has decided to introduce the initiative early.
This builds on the college’s OFSTED-rated ‘Outstanding’ SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) provision, giving staff the practical skills to offer safe, informed support to all students.
The programme is delivered in a one-hour eLearning module and an interactive face-to-face session delivered onsite.
The training is led by a trio of individuals with lived experience of autism, learning disabilities and neurodivergence. This matches best practice recommended by NHS England, the British Institute of Learning Disabilities (BILD), and the National Autistic Society (NAS).
Tracy Fee, director and founder of Hiyed, said: “Staff from Hiyed CIC, a local social enterprise, were delighted to have had the opportunity to share Oliver’s story and deliver some training linked with this to staff at Bishop Auckland college.
“Oliver McGowan’s tragic and avoidable death shone a light on the need for health and social care staff to have better training. Although mandatory for CQC-registered providers, we believe that education settings would also benefit from additional training in this area too.
“Building on our successful partnership with the college, they have therefore been the first education setting to access this adapted training.
“The feedback suggested that the college staff found this to be relevant, informative and helpful and that especially found listening to those with lived-experience to be very interesting. They thought that the training should be rolled out to other educational establishments.
“We hope that providing better understanding is a step towards further breaking down barriers and improving outcomes for learning disabled and neurodivergent students.”
Staff across the campus are already engaging with the material to improve how they support neurodivergent learners.
Neil Bowden, Head of School at Bishop Auckland College, said: “It was incredibly powerful to hear from the two young men presenting the course, who spoke with such passion about their own educational experiences – both positive and negative – and how those experiences have shaped them.
“While this training was originally developed for a healthcare setting, they clearly updated the content, making it highly engaging, relevant and informative for the education professionals they were delivering to.”
