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Paul Campbell and Avril McConnell represented ATL Future at TUC Congress. The event held by Unions 21 on 13 September, ‘Delivering for Young People’, saw unions coming together to discuss how unions can reach out to young people and share experiences with each other on how they support and engage young members in their unions.
The panel was chaired by Mary Bousted, ATLs General Secretary and included colleagues from the NUS and Equity unions.
Paul Campbell and Avril McConnell spoke of the investment ATL makes in student and newly qualified members, their experiences of taking the issues of new professionals to ATL's annual Conference and the regional network activity ATL Future organises throughout the year.
"We have to seek not just to engage young members," Paul said, "but really listen to their issues and conerns give them a real voice within the union and demonstrate unions can help get their point across." Paul described how he had met with MPs to discuss the problems ATL student members has raised over the increase in tuition fees.
"I was able to get their views across directly to the MPs face to face, that wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t an active member in ATL," he said.
ATL Future also supports new professionals in their career, Paul said, through a variety of CPD opportunities which helps them practically to be better teachers in the classroom from day one.