By Sally Ross, Jobs Plus Manager, Magenta Living
Some things are worth the wait and JobsPlus is definitely one of those. I first heard about JobsPlus 10 years ago – and a lot has happened since then. 6 Prime Ministers, 1 global pandemic and a lot of discussions.
When I saw Jim Riccio from MDRC speak about their American model of local community based employment support working in the heart of social housing I knew that it was something that Magenta Living and other housing associations in Communities that Work should explore. It’s taken a while and a lot of hard work by Communities that Work and Learning & Work Institute to get us here, but JobsPlus is happening!
Bidston Rise is one of 10 sites across the country delivering JobsPlus as part of the pilot funded by the Department for Work and Pensions through His Majesty’s Treasury’s Labour Market Evaluation Pilots Fund and managed nationally by Learning and Work Institute. JobsPlus offers local, community-based support, advice and guidance to help people living in the area to overcome any barriers that might be stopping them from moving towards work. We’re based in the community house at the heart of the community (geographically and emotionally) to become part of that community. And the most exciting feature of JobsPlus is that anyone who engages with us and moves into work could be eligible for a £400 into work bonus.
Directly delivered employment advice and support is a new approach for Magenta Living. We know the importance of the link between housing and employment and have been working with Communities that Work since it was founded in 2010. As soon as I knew JobsPlus was happening I was determined that I’d be the one to lead the team on this exciting new venture. We needed to move fast and to get the team in place would need a delivery partner. Fortunately, I could ‘phone a friend’ and Career Connect came on board, bringing their expertise and experience in working with participants furthest from the labour market.
At the core of JobsPlus is our work to engage the local community around employment and skills. We’re not here to just work with people who are out of work and help them with a CV and some interview skills, we’re not pushing people into any job as quickly as possible or following the same training pathway with anyone that signs up. We’re about working at their pace to get where they want to be.
JobsPlus has a saturation approach to engagement and with our small area of less than 400 homes we’re able to go and knock on every door to introduce ourselves and build relationships with people across Bidston Rise (even if they don’t sign up). This is helping to overcome one of the biggest barriers to our success. There is a mistrust of new people and agencies coming in and doing things ‘to’ the community. Over the summer, as we settled into our new base, we’ve been making it clear that we’re here to do things ‘with’ the community. We’ve worked alongside existing community activities to get our faces known by just being here and making the occasional cup of tea. Building on feedback from people we’ve spoken to already we’ll be launching our informal drop in sessions with the chance for a chat with our team and key partners over a cuppa… which partner organisations we invite to those sessions will be developed with the people who come along.
To help embed JobsPlus in the community, our team is based in a community house that is also the home of the Core Project who engage across the community delivering kids activities, bingo and a social supermarket (that offers reduced price food to the local community as part of a partnership to reduce food waste and help with the cost of living) to name a few. Our co-location gives us access to intelligence and feedback from the volunteers who all live on the estate. There have been some teething problems – some of these community champions have been more accurately described as community antagonists. Initial comments as we moved in included that we’re “wasting our time”, that it’s “not worth working if you have kids” and that “nobody round here wants a job”. These views just highlight the scale of the challenge facing the team and prove we picked the right place to try something different. And we’re already proving them wrong! During October we engaged with 30 people and had 10 sign up to further 1-2-1 support.
JobsPlus can work with anyone of working age regardless of their employment, health or benefit status. Our current participants range from 17 to 70 and even include a father and son. We knocked on their door after the son was referred to us and surprised his dad by saying that he could sign up too. They’re both heading towards training that will help them achieve their career goals.
Engagement was slow to start with, but as more people are getting to know JobsPlus we’ve had more people sign up – we’ve got single mums, people with health conditions and young people taking their first steps into the world of work. With all of these participants the ‘plus’ part of JobsPlus is proving to be essential. We’re helping with confidence, motivation, a driving licence or just giving them the time and space to talk through the biggest challenge facing them without judgement. Our participants are facing many challenges in their lives – these can be health related, childcare or a lack of qualifications, confidence and motivation. Any of these can be a distraction from looking for work. Our holistic person centred approach recognises this and the “plus” part of JobsPlus can offer support and signposting to help address these issues.
The participants we’re working with are all engaging well and beginning to take those first steps towards employment. We’re not looking at quick fixes but working with them to get the building blocks in place to help them find and sustain the job they want. We have people looking at functional skills courses, sector specific training & licences and self employment support. We’ve helped people think about what they want to do, changed mindsets from “I can’t work, I’m on the sick” to “but I might be able to do something…” and have engaged people who aren’t engaging with other services. This might take some time… but some things are worth waiting for!
