Employability is a real focus at ClwydAlyn. We believe that everyone should have access to training, development, and employment – no matter what your background is or who you are. Over the past few years, we have been partnering with organisations to help us to provide training or employment opportunities, for people with learning disabilities; and for people who face barriers to employment. This year, we have been working with a new partner to support our residents into work.
How does ClwydAlyn work in partnership with other organisations to give opportunities to tenants? Creating Enterprise, a subsidiary of Cartrefi Conwy, is an award-winning building and maintenance contractor that, as a social enterprise, invests its profits back into the community to help local people find training, volunteering and work opportunities.
Ami Jones is the Employability Mentor on the team which runs the Creating Futures Academy and explained how the Academy provides 12-month paid work placements for social housing tenants, where they can develop skills and use that experience to gain sustainable employment. The support provided includes advice on writing a good, effective CV; help with filling out application forms and preparing for interviews, and a personal action plan to support you to overcome any barriers you may face and to reach your goals.
There are a broad range of opportunities available, and the team has excellent links with local employers, working with them to give people the right training and pathways into work. Once you secure a job, the support continues for a month into your contract, and there are many other ways in which the organisation supports tenants.
Volunteering opportunities are available to increase confidence and build skills for work, and through Covid-19, volunteers have made welfare calls and picked up shopping and prescriptions for vulnerable members of the community. In addition, support has been given during this time to Cartrefi Conwy tenants with the Loan IT project, with volunteer Digital Champions supporting the tenants to use devices loaned to them by the project so that they can keep in touch with friends and family and relieve isolation.
The training offered is run across north Wales and ranges from budgeting to confidence building to learning to use Facebook, and there is also the Passport to Construction programme where participants can find out about different roles within the industry, learn the basics of health and safety, and brush up on their employability skills. The Passport to Care is also offered.
The National Lottery funded Working Families Project, ‘Making Work: Work for All’ supports working families in the Llandudno, Rhos on Sea, Mochdre and Old Colwyn areas, and the families taking part identified the barriers they face, setting up out of school activities and a loyal card scheme in partnership with local businesses.
All this then, is the work Creating Enterprise are doing to directly benefit the lives and futures of tenants, and in partnership with ClwydAlyn, have identified 10 Academy roles that ClwydAlyn tenants will be able to apply for. To find out more please contact Ami Jones on 01492 588980 or send an email to: employmentacademy@creatingenterprise.co.uk.
Great paid placements available, for unemployed ClwydAlyn and Cartrefi Conwy residents. To find out more visit: https://www.creatingenterprise.org.uk/en/creating-futures/virtual-jobs-board/ & https://bit.ly/2WIhQ23