“Thank you to The Forward Trust for their help and support I truly appreciate it and all the support I received; it has been great!”
The service was delivered by an experienced and qualified employability trainer and was designed to deliver a blended model of employability workshops and one-to-one support in Margate and Ramsgate, Kent.
Over the past 10 months, the service has supported over 100 participants referred by Jobcentre Plus (JCP) and progressed 40% into sustainable employment, focusing on the importance of transferable skills, work preparation training, interview techniques as well as self-reflection, confidence building and wellbeing awareness.
Following our participant satisfaction survey, 95% of our participants found the service to be interactive, relevant and well delivered, with 95% also having reported enjoying the workshops and one-to-one support from our skills trainer – 90% of participants also reported they would recommend this service to others.
Emma Woodward, Operational Manager at Forward’s Restart Scheme, said:
“We have really enjoyed launching and delivering our new job search support service. It has allowed us to upskill, motivate and encourage unemployed adults to confidently begin looking for new roles and return to work, away from a traditional classroom setting.
“All our referrals have been carefully grouped – whether that is by age, desired job sector or career goals, Restart has been able to adapt our workshops to suit the needs of service users. For example, we have been using a task-based employability skills approach combined with clear goal-setting objectives, ensuring everyone that attended each week left our workshop feeling they had learned something relevant and insightful to apply to their job searching.
“Amazingly, we have been able to place 40% of our participants into sustainable jobs (so far), with many more now confidently applying for work using techniques and resources they hadn’t tried before. The service also enabled our employer partners to be introduced to fantastic candidates, with exceptional skills and experiences, which any employer would benefit from. A huge thank you to Jobcentre Plus for funding and supporting this service.”
Artist, Carl Stafford, who benefited from the service said:
“Now I’ve completed the sessions with the job searching support service, I am feeling very positive about my future as a self-employed artist. It’s taken years to get to this step and it’s exciting. I have a few things I am working on at the moment to get this journey going. I’ve now got an account, social media support and an art exhibition in February. Thank you to The Forward Trust for their help and support I truly appreciate it and all the support I received; it has been great!”
The Forward Trust are a growing employability provider delivering DWP Restart and the JCP This dynamic purchasing system (DPS) programme as well as other education and skills programmes. The Forward Trust were a named finalist in the Employment Related Services Association (ERSA) awards 2023 in the category of Frontline Advisor of the Year award.