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The Continuous Employment Support Service is a joint initiative between SEEDA and Jobcentre Plus. It has developed from an original service operating in the South East since October 2003 to meet the needs of all those affected by redundancy. This revised and improved service provides a rapid, coherent and effective system, working with people who have been notified that they are facing redundancy whilst they are still in work. The brokers have extensive experience of the labour market, and offer advice and guidance tailored to meet the needs of employers and employees.
This project is due to run until March 2011. Due to demand for its services, targets continue to be exceeded.
Contact Details for the Continuous Employment Support Service Brokers:
Broker Contact Details
Sarah Young
Mobile: 07776 227 160
Email: Sarah Young
Graeme Carey
Mobile: 07876 790 918
For further information contact Janine Hobbs on 07778 828 704.
SEEDA working together with Job Centre Plus, supported by ESF, set up Your Path to Work, an employment initiative which offers individuals support to move from health related welfare benefits into work. Many people on Incapacity Benefit and currently inactive in the labour market may not be fully job ready. This project aims to give these people the motivation, confidence, skills and support to find employment.
 Incapacity Benefit recipients make up about 230,000 of the estimated 900,000 economically inactive people of working age in the region. Your Path to Work seeks commitment from GPs to support Incapacity benefit recipients back to work.
There are three elements to Your Path to Work:
Confident to Work
A 13 week course to learn techniques for people to manage their health condition through occupational therapy, condition-specific assessments, healthy living advice and stress or pain management techniques.
Choose Work, Advice and Guidance
Up to 7 weeks intensive support to update job search skills including CV and application forms, addresses barriers to work and improves motivation through mentoring and group work.
New Beginnings
Provides individual support in the workplace through mentoring and training during the early stages of returning to work.
For further information please contact Fiona Leggett.
Bracknell Forest and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Lifelong Learning Partnerships and Unitary Authorities in partnership with SEEDA will pilot a model that creates indigenous growth within their local area. The concept involves supporting economically inactive residents to take advantage of new job opportunities created by major construction developments taking place within Bracknell, Windsor and Maidenhead where it is anticipated that some 5,000 new jobs will be created over the next 5-7 years in the retail, hotel, tourism and construction sectors. This against a background of only about 1% registered unemployment in each of the Boroughs and a high proportion of the working age population in employment.
SEEDA's funding will contribute to the creation of a large Project Team who will be responsible for making connections with local groups and organisations who are currently in touch with the economically inactive, to ensure that residents can access services to help them become job ready or capable or reaching their potential. Such services will include advice and guidance, learning or training, and support and mentoring to gain new and improved employment.
Key beneficiaries of the project include: Teenage parents, Adults with mental health problems, Adults with moderate learning difficulties, Carers, Older workers, Those being made redundant, Those on incapacity benefit, Those not in education or employment, Multi ethnic groups, Groups where English is a second or other language.
For further information please contact Fiona Wickins.
News
Learning Communities addresses learning and skills on three estates (Barton, Blackbird Leys and Rose Hill) which together account for 9 of the 13 most deprived Super Output Areas in Oxfordshire, especially in the skills and training domain. By March 2008, SEEDA will tackle underachievement by engendering a positive change in attitudes to learning and participation in formal learning on the three estates. This will be achieved by working with Oxfordshire County Council through developing and implementing sustainable plans for future provision so that no resident in the three estates is disadvantaged by where they live. The primary aim of learning communities is to bring people into mainstream provision by providing accessible and informal learning as a first step.
The project seeks to achieve the following:
- To provide progression into 'mainstream Learning' by providing accessible and informal learning as a first step;
- To develop community learning infrastructure, signposting and brokerage for learning and employer engagement;
- To engage learners by building up a network of 'learning champions' on each estate.
- To integrate the learning and skills provider network at estate/community level and develop a step change in provider operational cultures and co-operation;
- To engage with employers, to progress local residents on to the skills escalator with a view to enhance productivity, job satisfaction, quality of life and career development.
- To sustain the project by focusing on the creation of opportunities and structures which will continue after the project has ended and through the establishment of a sustainability panel.
For further information please contact Amanda Reed.
SEEDA has developed a strategy for delivering Basic Skills in the NHS. An infrastructure has been established at a regional and sub-regional level based around the four Strategic Health Authorities. This combines into a strong learning partnership of key stakeholders that are able to facilitate change. This includes the LSC, National Heath Service University, NHS organisations and Basic Skills providers.
During 2004, 10 SEEDA funded projects were developed and consequently Basic Skills is now being delivered in 55 of the 98 NHS Trusts in the region (20 of the 27 Acute Trusts, 27 of the 49 Primary Care Trusts, three of the seven Ambulance Trusts and five of the 15 Mental Health Care Trusts). This equates to potential coverage of approximately 85,000 of the region's 150,000 NHS staff.
For further information contact Bruce Cavalier.
This project will provide long term quality work placements for students 16-30yrs that will underpin their curriculum activity. Aimed at students of all abilities, its purpose is to seek quality work placements that will give young people the opportunity to experience the progression routes available to them within their chosen career in a retail environment. Examples of routes available could be accountancy, marketing, information technology.
In support of raising awareness among lecturers a proportion of tutor placements will be included to increase their knowledge of the sector and underpin their own Continual Professional Development (CPD).
By 31st March 2006, there will be an increase in well qualified professional young people entering the retail sector. The project will enhance the students' experience of the sector, broaden their horizons and encourage talent and entrepreneurial skills within the retail sector.
For further information please contact Amanda Reed.
SEEDA's funding has paid for a Project Manager (Nicky Curtis) who will be responsible for creating and co-ordinating 3 sustainable retail networks within Kent (Dartford, Gravesend and Chatham) that will pull together the various strategic partners and retailers. The networks will offer support to local retailers and help identify possible strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, solutions, trends and threats.
The project will provide a framework and toolkit to help the 3 networks become self-sustaining. Local retail champions will be identified to help engage local shops and retailers to look at local problems such as:
- competition from national chains of supermarkets;
- the loss of local independent shops;
- the lure of out of town shopping malls;
- difficulties with recruitment and retention of staff;
- training needs;
- ICT requirements, and;
- Coping with local competition, business development, etc.
By 31 March 2007, 3 retail networks will have been set up in Dartford, Gravesend and Chatham and an audit of skills gaps and poor services will have been identified and collective solutions found and implemented.
For further information please contact Amanda Reed, or Nicky Curtis.
You can also visit www.skillsmartretail.com where you will find a variety of useful PDFs to download.
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Your Path to Work