Employment & Skills

Taking up work, whether paid or unpaid, or undertaking a full time education or training course, helps to increase people's confidence and self esteem; it integrates them into the community and makes it less likely that they will become homeless again in the future.  It enables people to make a positive contribution to their community and gives people a purpose in life.

We help people to move on to employment, education, training or voluntary work in the community when they are ready.  This may involve helping them to prepare CVs, open a bank account and fill in application forms.  We will go with people to interviews for education and training courses and help them with any equipment they may need. 

We also help people to gain qualifications which will help them secure employment, including customer service, catering, first aid, and health and safety.  We run courses to enable people to gain qualifications in food hygiene, which is very useful for anyone going into the catering or hospitality industry.  We will pay for people to sit the building industry health and safety exam and gain their CSCS cards, which is essential for anyone who is going to work on a building site.

We work with a wide range of local businesses and larger corporate partners to arrange work placements, or to find suitable voluntary work if they are not ready to seek employment immediately.

Philippe's story

Read about how Philippe has been supported to find employment and accommodation here.