Widening access to the legal profession, putting our time and money where our heart is.
By Lorna Baldry
On 28th February 2019 Brightlink will award it’s first scholarship. This is the culmination of the first stage of our hopes and dreams to be a key part of ensuring access to learning and to the legal profession. We would like it to be the first of many, as Brightlink was set up with the intention of giving back to learners who sacrifice their time and income to work hard and show us their support along the way. The larger Brightlink grows, the more we can offer and at the moment our growth is incredible.
The Marjorie Parsons memorial scholarship will offer one learner all costs associated with their study to complete either level 3 or level 6 in 2019/20. We began here to start with a small section of eligible applicants and insisted on supporting the units to complete a qualification level because it would be unethical to only support part completion. This might leave someone who has worked hard without a full qualification to show for it. We want the qualification achieved to be meaningful and something that brings real progress in the direction the successful applicant would like to take their career.
Marjorie Parsons is my late grandmother. She didn’t have a lengthy or profound formal education herself, but she was clever and loved learning her whole life. She supported her large family to achieve their aspirations always letting us know we could do and be anything we wanted. She supported us with her love and encouragement and practically too with her time and sometimes financial help. I hope that this scholarship programme will be a fitting tribute to her belief that everyone is deserving of and capable of achieving their dreams.
Brightlink is a family business and we value the unique support and dedication this and our amazing team can bring to the dreams of learners. Our passion is high quality, sector leading learning with outstanding customer service. We like to work in a way that contributes to cohesive, effective, safe and happy communities. High quality learning experiences have the power to transform lives and communities. We aim to enable and empower learning for all, in their context, at their pace, approaching learning and management with innovation, compassion and aspiration. Marjorie would definitely approve and would be our staunchest supporter.
The offer of free learning to those showing great commitment to overcome barriers to their learning and develop themselves is key to our ethos and something we will continue to do year on year. For this year’s scholarship, those eligible must:
- Have already completed some Chartered Institute of Legal Executives study. They will have up to 5 units left to complete the full level 3 qualification or up to 2 units left to complete the full level 6 qualification.
- Be facing significant barriers to completing their qualification including financial and other limitations.
- Be prepared to sit examinations in the relevant subjects by the end of June 2020.
Brightlink will provide tuition and learning materials, one year’s membership fee and examination entry fees for all the units which form a part of the scholarship. We will also provide the recommended textbooks for all relevant units.
We are inspired by the learners we work with who battle physical and mental illness, still studying and offering support to their communities, colleagues and families. We hope to give these incredible people some of that support for themselves. We could all face sudden, terrible, unavoidable events in life and we could all use a helping hand when we do.
In future we would like to grow enough to offer full scholarships to whole CILEx qualifications and to offer free development programmes to schools and third sector organisations. This is how we will repay the incredible support and loyalty our learners show us by working with us day to day.