Project: Skills for Jobs, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire (Tribal)

Capacity to innovate and to adapt delivery solutions aids success in removing barriers to employment

Those who face multiple barriers to employment often have low self-esteem and lack the ability to recognise the transferable nature of the skills that they have. The success of Tribal’s Skills for Jobs programme in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire is due in large part to the empathy, care and commitment of those delivering the programme. As well as helping participants with employability skills to find work, their support continues when they have found a job, with qualifications and other training to help them do their work more effectively. The project works in close partnership with other agencies to deliver a coordinated support package.

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Project feature

The Skills for Jobs programme delivers individualised support across Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire with a total target number of 993 participants, all of whom have multiple barriers to employment. Their approach to providing employability skills doesn’t end when the person has been successful in finding a job: they appreciate that additional skills or training might be required for that person to be able to do their job well. Participants’ employability needs continue to be assessed, and training – accredited (towards qualifications) or non-accredited – continues until they are fully able to effectively fulfil the needs of the job.

Participants come to the project through self-referral or partner organisations. The Skills for Jobs team are part of JobMAETS, an inter-agency working partnership. This has proved highly successful for the individual as the project can access specialist help (for example, relating to mental health issues, drug use or homelessness) to best support someone overcoming or working with a specific problem that acts as a barrier to employment. There is a good linkage of continuing support to other Integrated Employment and Skills (IES) programmes.

The staff delivering the programme are passionate about helping people and, between them, they themselves offer a wide range of life experience. Although each participant has their own keyworker, they work together as a team and have created an environment in which people feel comfortable asking for help from any of them. Clients comment on the level of support and commitment they get from their keyworker. The highly individualised support starts with one-to-one time spent on employability skills, such as CV-writing, during which a key feature is helping them build their confidence and self-esteem. They begin to understand and appreciate what skills they have developed and how these could be transferable to match job requirements. Participants are encouraged to look broadly at their employment options and helped to understand local labour market conditions and what jobs are available. Keyworkers encourage people to go for the job they want, if they are willing to work for the necessary qualifications and/or skills, and to understand that one job may be the first step on the route to what they aspire. Voluntary work experience may also help them clarify what they would like to pursue.

Flexibility is a mark of the programme, where each participant is supported in whatever way is appropriate to them. Key workers see their clients in people’s homes, places of work, centres in the community or the centrally located training centres, according to individual ability and need.

Group sessions help them both with improving social skills and also in building confidence. Training sessions are conducted as informally as possible, encouraging discussion, self-discovery and the exploration of ideas, while still ensuring the content is understood and absorbed. They look around the room and see other people who are unemployed and see that they are not the only ones in their position. As they get to know each other, they spur each other on with encouragement and peer support. Achieving qualifications not only strengthens their CV but gives them a positive educational outcome, offsetting prior experiences.

Several software programmes have been found to be extremely effective in supporting the diagnostic and learning processes. Adept is a programme in which the participant is self-diagnostic, looking at strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes. The results then form the basis for an adviser-led discussion to help them recognise and overcome barriers that may have been identified. Adult Directions is a career-oriented diagnostic tool which, again, looks at likes, dislikes and other inclinations but can then be evaluated and sorted by job sector or necessary qualifications. With Target Skills Gold the participant’s Skills for Life level is established and then the tutor can set them work. This offers maximum flexibility as the work can be assigned remotely for them to do online if the learner has internet access, or can be delivered in the classroom or even the workplace as a taught session. All of these programmes help the learner ‘own’ their learning and progress. Increasing their confidence in computer use also supports the participants’ employability portfolio.

In several parts of the East Midlands a unique collaboration between an employer and training providers – known as a Gateway, Sector Routeway or Academy – has been highly successful. The employer is involved in the design of the training programme, which is tailored to their needs and the key skills they have identified that they are looking for in an employee. They also take part in programme delivery, engaging directly with the participants about the company’s expectations, offering mentored work experience, and conducting interviews. The employer engagement model has been highly successful for the employer in appointing suitable employees for their vacancies, for those delivering the skills training, and for the individuals, who are talking to the employer from the start and feel they have a better chance of getting a job from it in the end.

Skills for Jobs builds strong relationships with the programme participants. They are treated with respect and listened to with value for what they have to offer. This is the start of a process of rebuilding self-esteem that leads to a committed engagement to work towards clear employment goals, and the belief that they can succeed.

Contact details

Colin Smith, Project Manager, Employability and Skills, Education
Tribal
3rd Floor
The Atrium , 20 Wollaton Street
Nottingham, NG1 5FW
Tel: (0845) 0943140
Mob: (07717) 850092
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