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The Salvation Army Employment Plus

Employability & Welfare
Image for The Salvation Army Employment Plus
Lead Organisation:
The Salvation Army
Theme:
Award Amount:
£64,442.00

Employment Plus is the Employment Services Department of the Salvation Army, delivering employability support across the UK.

The Supporting New Scots Fund provided us with an opportunity to provide holistic employability support to 49 refugees across Scotland.

The support included assistance with CVs and interview techniques to providing baby clothes and a pram.

Our values of Passion, Compassion, Integrity, Accountability, Respect and Boldness are held in all our delivery and never more so than when dealing with the participants in this programme.

The employability practitioners have provided strength based, person-centred support to each individual resulting in a greater understanding of the labour market and an increased probability of sustainable employment.

In turn, this leads to improved personal circumstances and greater integration. The participant journeys were varied to suit their own desired outcomes.

New Scots reached
49

Key Information

Our primary objective was to provide a short, sharp intervention, which provided tangible improvements to skills and confidence in engaging with the jobs market.

We were to achieve this by adopting an asset-based approach to identify/highlight skills and transferable skills – fostering a genuine sense of personal empowerment.

CV building makes the most of all experiences and showcase not only skills/qualifications but the personal qualities the participant can bring.

We also wanted to provide support around geography and mapping potential travel commitments, and support to address integration such as identifying potential housing solutions and budget/money management techniques.

Connecting refugees with the broader community is vital to achieving stability therefore we planned to use our local presence to signpost community support and our in-house community networks (Churches, Shops, Community Groups).

Our project aimed to involve partnering with employers to access work experience opportunities/volunteering.

Our staff are also adept at employer engagement acting as a bridge between potential employer and our participants.

Key Information

Partnership

The Salvation Army Homelessness Services

Geographical reach

Buckie, Clydebank, Elgin, Dundee, Dunfermline, Glasgow, Hamilton, Fraserburgh, Kilbirnie, Kilmarnock, Kirkcaldy, Peterhead, Saltcoats

Dates

May 2023  -Nov 2023

Target Groups

Refugees wishing to increase their confidence in the labour market.

Project Type

Improving employability skills and labour market confidence of refugees in Scotland.

Situation

The Salvation Army was approached to manage temporary accommodation as a response to the influx of Ukrainian refugees.

One of the main requests from the refugees was assistance to find employment. Employment Plus began a dialogue with the Homelessness Services to find ways to prepare the residents for employment in Scotland.

When the funding through Supporting New Scots Fund was identified and secured, we set up regular sessions for one-to-one discussions and small group training activities.

Once we had commenced our work, many of the residents registered with our service then shared the learning with others resulting in several additional job outcomes.

We were able to expand the provision across our other delivery points in Scotland, helping refugees from many different countries to maximise their potential in the labour market and in their personal circumstances.

Involvement of New Scots in project

We held discussions with the residents living in our accommodation to find out what support they would benefit from and the method whereby that support should be delivered.

All those who registered for support created their own person-centred support plan, agreeing which interventions would benefit their individual circumstances.

They were particularly interested in group work as they enjoyed working together and gained peer support.

Similarly, when we introduced our service to Maslow’s Community in Govan, the employability practitioner set up the service delivery in response to the needs and requirements of the refugees as individuals and as a group.

Impact

Those who have received the service have reported increased confidence in the labour market. We have been able to access ESOL classes in groups and 1-2-1 which has helped a great deal in preparing the participants for work.

Those with qualifications have been assisted to have their qualifications transferred to the UK equivalent. We have used some of the funding to pay for translation and a statement of comparability where this was needed to gain employment or training.

All those registered with the service developed an action plan. There have been 27 exits from the service to date. Of these 13 have moved to paid employment, 5 into volunteering and 2 into full time study. Please see Exit Reports and completed Action Plans of those exiting the service.

While not every job gained is the employment the participant wishes to do long term, the participants are using the experience to build language skills, develop team work, integrate into the working community and gain confidence and a sense of self-worth that comes from employment.

The employment practitioners are working closely with the refugees attending Maslow’s Community in Glasgow and will continue to do so. We have identified refugees requiring our assistance across Scotland.

One participant is receiving support from The Salvation Army in Fife to purchase a laptop to assist with his job searching and his current training opportunity in Edinburgh. Many of The Salvation Army Corps (churches) have and are providing support in many forms. Milestones achieved over 7 months totalled 222.

Challenges encountered

Unsurprisingly the main challenge we found in this project was the language barrier as we have previously delivered to people for who English is their first language.

There were many languages spoken as refugees came from several countries. Most employers need employees to have at least a basic command of English therefore this was a challenge that had to be addressed.

Some of the participants held qualifications from their native countries which were not accessible for comparison for various reasons such as “the building where they were stored was bombed”.

Lack of understanding of the way the labour market works in UK. The short-term nature of the programme limited the number of people we could support.

Solutions

The participants were keen to develop their English language skills therefore were actively seeking ESOL classes with and without our assistance.

Most of the people had a better command of English at the end of their programme and continued attending ESOL afterwards. We ran a few individual ESOL classes on-line.

Google and Microsoft Translate were useful tools with refugees often able to hold their phone towards our presentations to have an instant translation.

As a response to the linguistic barrier, Employment Plus has developed an ESOL workbook which will be available to our employability practitioners for all the participants whose first language is not English.

This gives basic support around the language but also the culture of the UK to give refugees a better basic understanding of their new country.

In cases where the refugees had copies of their qualifications, we were able to have them translated and sent for comparison. Where there was no evidence we encouraged the attendees to identify specifically the skills and knowledge they had and helped them to recognise their transferrable skills.

We had not considered the method of finding work was different from other countries. Our delivery model includes targeted job searching, creating on-line profiles, employer engagement and interview techniques therefore we were able to guide the participants through the requirements of recruitment in UK.

Although the funded programme closed at the end of November, The Salvation Army continued to provide support through our self-funded delivery. In this way, all those who had not achieved a level of confidence in the labour market to find work were able to remain on our caseload.

The positive aspects of taking on a new approach (innovative)/How the project has expanded on existing examples of good practice (good practice)

The funding provided has allowed us to provide valuable and worthwhile interventions to New Scots to help them on their way to being self-sufficient and valued members of their local communities.

The integration that is a result of employment cannot be overstated. The refugees have gained language skills by working within our programme, not just the actual ESOL classes but by communicating with the employability practitioners, employers at jobs fairs, their own employers, others in the work place.

Our programme introduced them to employability skills such as interview skills, CV writing and how to find and apply for work in what to them is a foreign country with different cultures.

The case studies and Exit Reports show the variety and complexity of holistic support we have been able to provide due the project funding therefore evidencing good value for the investment.

Reflections

Those who have received the service have reported increased confidence in the labour market. We have been able to access ESOL classes in groups and 1-2-1 which has helped a great deal in preparing the participants for work.

Those with qualifications have been assisted to have their qualifications transferred to the UK equivalent. We have used some of the funding to pay for translation and a statement of comparability where this was needed to gain employment or training. All those registered with the service developed an action plan.

There have been 27 exits from the service to date. Of these 13 have moved to paid employment, 5 into volunteering and 2 into full time study. Please see Exit Reports and completed Action Plans of those exiting the service.

While not every job gained is the employment the participant wishes to do long term, the participants are using the experience to build language skills, develop team work, integrate into the working community and gain confidence and a sense of self-worth that comes from employment.

The employment practitioners are working closely with the refugees attending Maslow’s Community in Glasgow and will continue to do so. We have identified refugees requiring our assistance across Scotland.

One participant is receiving support from The Salvation Army in Fife to purchase a laptop to assist with his job searching and his current training opportunity in Edinburgh. Many of The Salvation Army Corps (churches) have and are providing support in many forms.

Further Information

Keywords

Employability, employment, Jobs, Refugee, Skills, Training

Contact

Contact:
Pamela Grant

Address:
4 Buchanan Ct, Cumbernauld Rd, Stepps, Glasgow G33 6HZ

Telephone:
0800 652 4276

Email:
employmentplus@salvationarmy.org.uk

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