LHF Working with SLYMCA

 

A grant award of over £54,000 from the LHF has allowed the South London YMCA to help homeless people get back to work.

  • South London YMCA
  • £54,000
  • January 2012

The partnership is a consortium of eleven homelessness organisations in London who came together to promote the concept of customer employment within their own organisations and across the voluntary sector, by sharing job opportunities with the other members. The partners developed the scheme to promote the principles of the highly successful Thames Reach GROW (Giving Real Opportunities for Work) Programme in their own agencies.

To the end of January 2012, some 196 paid and voluntary jobs had been offered through the partnership, with 85 customers making successful applications. Of those 85, 35 were appointed to paid vacancies.
The way the consortium works is as follows:

  • Partnership colleagues work with HR staff at their organisations to identify suitable job vacancies.
  • The vacancies are forwarded to South London YMCA.
  • The job description, person specification and application form are then circulated to named colleagues at the partnership organisations
  • Those colleagues disseminate through internal structures to customers of those organisations.
  • Customers are encouraged and supported to apply for vacancies.

Kevin Rothero of SLYMCA manages the scheme.  He said “Homeless people have skills that can be extremely beneficial to employers.  There have always been problems matching people to posts and this scheme helps us to do that.  We expect to be able to help even more people into work this year.”

The scheme helps to deliver real job opportunities and job-focussed support for people with experience of homelessness, at a time when this vulnerable group faces significant and enduring obstacles to employability.

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