Business Park forges partnerships to support job seekers with convictions
Birmingham Business Park (BBP) has partnered with the New Leaf Initiative CIC and the Heart of England Community Rail Partnership (CRP) to deliver an interactive experience day through their Careers, Creativity and the Commonwealth project (CCIS).
Heart of England CRP was established to bring together rail industry partners, local authorities, businesses, and communities to help maximise the economic, social, and environmental benefits of the rail network to residents, businesses, and visitors.
The New Leaf Initiative C.I.C. is an award-winning prison to employment specialist operating in the West Midlands. Born out of consultation, their aim is to hear, value and amplify the voices of the communities they serve and provide a linear pathway for service users to support them into secure employment.
The New Leaf Initiative CIC have developed a trainee pre-employment training course that focusses on a coaching, mentoring and employability linking to the railways with the New Leaf Initiative CIC. Trainees spend two weeks with New Leaf where they learn functional skills such as how to write a CV and get ongoing support to help them gain meaningful employment.
On Thursday 27 January, Avanti West Coast's CCIS scheme brought the organisations together at Birmingham Business Park for the third week of their Careers Experience Days to explore numerous employment opportunities on the site, including careers in the railway industry and opportunities that can be accessed via the railways.
Lori Henebury, Marketing, Community and Business Development manager for Birmingham Business Park, organised inspirational talks from Chris Powles, head of Business Development and Improvement at Sulzer, Kam Hundal, business partner for Skills & Employment and Nick Cuming, stakeholder manager from Balfour Beatty VINCI, to highlight career opportunities available in infrastructure and engineering.
Lori said: "It was a privilege to host a careers day for the New Leaf Initiative, a fantastic organisation on a mission to help people with convictions get into work. A huge thank you to all the business leaders and our local stakeholders who took the time out to welcome participants to our community here at the Park. We can 't wait to take part in the next one."
Participants also got to join the monthly Netwalk on the Business Park, which was a great chance to talk to others based on the park whilst visiting the park's woodland and allotment areas.
Julia Singleton-Tasker, Community Rail partnership officer at Heart of England CRP said: "Our day at Birmingham Business Park was brilliant. Lori organised a great day for our participants on the project and it was eye opening to see the huge amount of employment opportunities that are at the park and only a short train ride away from Birmingham and Coventry. We're looking forward to working more with Birmingham Business Park and the organisations who took the time to give us such a warm welcome there."
Marie-Claire O 'Brien, CEO and founder of New Leaf Initiative said: "Bringing our trainees to Birmingham Business Park to meet with a variety of different people and businesses such as Sulzer and Balfour Beatty Vinci has been invaluable. Some of the trainees have had little idea about what they wanted to do as a career, so this really clarified things for a few of them who are now going to sign up to the construction course and one of our trainees is even considering the rail industry.
"We are always grateful to businesses that open their doors to us, for taster days and as employers looking to diversify their work stream with young people who could probably be classed as furthest from the labour market when they start with us due to their pasts, learning difficulties and living environments.
"Due to our traineeship programme however, we see them become employable and highly motivated, and we're proud to say that over half of them have secured employment following participation, with others currently completing work experience placements and hungry for employment opportunities. Experience days like this play a huge part in that process, so we 're extremely grateful to Lori and Julia for pulling everything together in such a great way for our young people. The feedback from them has been brilliant and we look forward to bringing the next cohort in March."
The project has two more cohorts planned in March and May and the Heart of England CRP and the New Leaf are welcoming the opportunity to talk to more organisations about their work.
For more information contact [email protected] (CRP Officer) or [email protected] (partnership manager at New Leaf).