The Welfare to Work Convention is the UK's premier annual event for all those involved in the planning and delivery of services to help workless people find and keep jobs. This year, Kate Shone of Forum Housing Association and Laura Gardiner from convention organisers, Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion (CESI) took the opportunity to introduce a packed room of delegates to the 'Give us a chance' Consortium.
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As the Future Jobs Fund scheme comes to an end, the 'Give us a chance' Consortium is seeking to establish a viable alternative that will allow social housing providers to continue to offer employment and training opportunities to young people within the communities they serve.
Kate pointed out in the short time the Consortium has been in existence, it has already attracted social housing providers of all sizes that currently own over 300,000 homes, employ over 10,000 people and serve over half a million people across the UK.
“The nature of what we do as social landlords is to provide services to some of the most vulnerable people in our society – this puts us in touch with their individual needs and aspirations. We know the problems people face in trying to improve their lot in life,” she said.
Building on a track record of success
Often working in areas of high unemployment, she stated that the Consortium members wanted to harness the knowledge and experience they had gained through the Future Jobs Fund. Research from Helen Cope Consulting showed that over 40% of the young people that had undertaken Future Jobs Fund placements with Consortium members had gone on to find permanent employment.
This history of success was the reason, Kate said, why “We are so determined to carry on, and why we formed the 'Give us a chance' Consortium and commissioned CESI to look at how – in a situation where there is inevitably less money in the pot – we can continue to provide help, support and opportunities for disadvantaged people living in our homes and communities to gain employment and training”.
Working in partnership
Laura introduced the results of the CESI research that identified five future employment and training models:
The ‘proving talent’ jobs model – where young people are given jobs with full training for a period of three to 12 months – was the one that the 'Give us a chance' Consortium is promoting. The young people will be recruited exclusively through the newly established Work Programme.
'With the advent of the Work Programme, we are keen to work with Prime and sub-contractors to deliver what is needed so that we can deliver our social purpose and go on doing what we know we do well,” said Kate.
If you'd like to know more about the 'Give us a chance' Consortium, please email us here |
Welfare to Work Convention
Should you wish to download a copy of the presentation given at the Welfare to Work Convention, please click here(PDF, file size 1.8MB)
To find out more about the 'Give us a chance' Consortium members, please click here
To download our leaflet, telling you more about the 'Give us a chance' Consortium, please click here (PDF, file size 204KB)
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