Supporting into work: seminars

This practical one-day event shared ways to improve the employability outcomes for homeless people.

28 March 2012 | London | One-day conference

Conference overview          Programme

seminar session I

A: How to build lasting, successful relationships with employers.
Carmen Llorente, Cricklewood Homeless Concern
This session will explore how to:

  • engage with your local community and local businesses.
  • develop lasting relationships with large corporate partners.
  • link in with local businesses to meet their recruitment needs.
  • find sustainable jobs for your clients.

B: How to work with ex-offenders to find paid employment.
Jocelyn Hillman, Working Chance (invited)
Dennis Phillips, Timpsons
This session will explore:

  • how to support individuals with an offending background into paid employment.
  • what a national employer is  doing to recruit individuals with a history of offending.
  • How you are working with charities and probation teams to enable this to happen.
  • some of the difficulties that you may face and how they can be overcome.

C: How to offer training that is focused on developing employability skills to enable homeless people to gain employment.
Linda McGowan, CREATE
This session will include a practical overview of what Create does and how it supports vulnerable adults to find employment; as well as exploring:

  • How a homelessness service can offer training for marginalised people.
  • The role that work-based learning plays in creating job opportunities.
  • Why it is key that services focus on offering employability based skills training that is outcomes focused and linked to real job requirements.

D: Volunteering: how volunteering can lead to paid employment
Iain Mcdiarmid, St Mungo's
Andy Williams, St Mungo's
This session will explore:

  • The role that a volunteering opportunity can play in supporting someone into paid employment
  • How to ensure each volunteering opportunity develops relevant employability skill
  • How to set up a volunteering scheme that leads to paid jobs.

E: How to implement an effective and sustainable service user employment model within your organisation.
Monica Geraghty, Thames Reach
Rebecca Ezekiel, Trinity Homeless Project
This session will explore:

  • The benefits of employing service users for clients, the service user employee and the organisation.
  • The cultural shift required and the legal and policy implications of employing service users.
  • Barriers and solutions to delivering service user employment programmes.
  • A model of service user employment. 

Seminar session II

A: Is someone better off working?
Rod Cullen, St Mungo's
Amanda Croom, The Booth Centre
This session will look at:

  • How a homelessness service can encourage its staff to work with all clients and help them find employment, including those who are further from the job market.
  • How a service can support their staff to overcome the low expectations that they may have of their clients and their chance of finding them paid employment.
  • The reasons why everyone is better off working  – looking beyond the financial benefits .
  • How a service can encourage its staff to recognize all of these benefits and the added value of working above and beyond the financial value.

B: Pre employment pathways: how to offer relevant, structured support to assist the journey from homelessness to paid employment.
Anne Willmot, Business Action on Homelessness
Debra Fearnshaw, Business Action on Homelessness
Susan Biss, JobCentrePlus
This session will explore:

  • The support that those who have experienced homelessness need as they move to find paid employment.
  • How to deliver relevant, practical employability skills training to marginalised people to ensure they are ready for work.
  • How to develop an individual’s emotional resilience to help them cope with and retain their job.
  • The support that JobCentrePlus can offer to those who have experienced homelessness as they move to find paid employment.

C: Welfare reform: understanding the impact of these changes on homelessness services and clients.
Michael Fothergill, Crisis
This session will explore

  • An overview of the changes to date.
  • The implications of these changes on homelessness services and clients.
  • How these changes impact on someone working and trying to find work.

D: How to offer appropriate, effective in-work support to your clients to ensure sustained employment.
Amy Webb, Broadway
Juliette Hough, Broadway
This session will explore

  • What support clients need as they move into paid employment.
  • How to maintain support while someone is working.
  • How to build confidence and emotional resilience.

E: Work Programme: how to pitch effectively to access the opportunities this programme offers to homelessness services.
George Fella, Reed in Partnership
Imran Alvi, Vital Regeneration
This session will explore how homelessness services:

  • Should pitch effectively to Prime Contractors of the Work Programme to access the opportunities it offers.
  • Can become part of the supply chain and deliver services.
  • Should demonstrate their outcomes and position their service so that it is distinguishable from others.
  • Should cost their work.