Impact Newsletter - May 2024

Disability Smart Awards 2024

Ingeus were proud to sponsor the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Disability Confident Awards for Impact, Small Business, and Mental Health and Wellbeing.

The three awards were judged by the Department for Work and Pensions Disability Confident team and presented by Mims Davies MP at Business Disability Forum’s Disability Smart Awards 2024 on 30th April in London.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we were inspired by the fantastic journeys that were showcased and demonstrated the progress businesses of all sizes and sectors are making in becoming Disability Confident and enabling an inclusive workforce.

Congratulations to all the companies and people recognised at the awards!

Find out what Disability Confident can do for your business here: https://disabilityconfident.campaign.gov.uk/

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The trip of a lifetime

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The prison conversation that set me on the road to a new life

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Pioneering Paul finds coffee, confidence, and hopes of a new career

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The importance of mental health first aid skills

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The trip of a lifetime

NCS (National Citizen Service) is an exciting, challenging, and life-affirming away from home experience for 15-17 year olds. It’s energetic, thought-provoking, and entertaining in equal measure; a genuine and defining coming-of-age experience.

So what about when you’re a 39-year-old teaching assistant looking after the needs of a group of Islamic girls, one of whom is disabled, and managing your own lower back condition? Well, as Shabana from Rochdale’s Islamic Academy for Girls found out, it’s no different at all!

Shabana accompanied girls from her school, with another teacher, on a five-day summer NCS residential, run by Ingeus at the Kingswood Dearne Valley outdoor activity centre in South Yorkshire. Providing one to one support for a disabled student, and supervising excited, post-exam teens away from home for the first time, Shabana had her work cut out. On a personal level, she was also a little wary:

“I didn’t have the opportunity to go on a residential trip as a girl and really didn’t think some of the outdoor activities would be my thing,” confesses Shabana. “I’m not very outdoorsy and wasn’t sure my back condition would allow for some of the activities, but I wanted to show the girls what was possible. I threw myself into it, did every activity, and absolutely loved it. It massively boosted my own confidence and I’m planning some glamping trips with my own family now.”

Shabana and the girls tried a variety of fun challenges from archery and high ropes to canoeing and a fly on the zip line. Away from the action, they got mindful, creative, and debated topical issues –all part of the mix on NCS’s residential adventures. The accommodation and activities accommodated the needs of Shabana’s disabled student and the cultural considerations of girls coming from an Islamic faith school, as Shabana describes:

“I really saw the girls shine on NCS – as did I. It challenged us to become more confident, work as a team, and make new friends. We all learned new skills and a lot about ourselves.”

“The staff were absolutely fantastic, so considerate of our needs. We had dedicated space for prayers, worked in female groups, with female leaders and there was lots of vegetarian and other appropriate food. Working in our own areas meant the girls were confident to not wear their hijabs and so could really get into the physical activities and properly enjoy themselves. That’s not to say we didn’t mix with other young people there though, there was lots of chat and walks with girls from other schools; other cultures and backgrounds.”

This was the first time that students from Rochdale Islamic Academy for Girls (RIAG) had participated in NCS, but it wasn’t the last. Some of the girls enjoyed their trip so much that they returned to Kingswood later in the summer and Shabana has displays of their time away in the school hall to entice next year’s leavers. Recognising the positive impact it had on the students, the school is also considering residential trips for Year 9 and 10 girls.

“I really saw the girls shine on NCS – as did I,” concludes Shabana. “It challenged us to become more confident, work as a team, and make new friends. We all learned new skills and a lot about ourselves.

“Girls from our culture don’t always have the opportunity to stay away from home or other family members, and Covid made that even more difficult. NCS offered a safe space for us all to try new things. It was an experience that will last a lifetime.”

NCS is a government backed experience open to all 15 to 17-year olds in England. For £95, with bursaries available, young people spend four nights away from home learning skills for work and life in a fun, supported environment. NCS residentials are delivered by Ingeus, in partnership with the Youth Hostel Association and a range of youth services partners.

Find out more at www.wearencs.com

Sharing best practices in employment services

Our Employment Services team were delighted to host a visit from The World Bank and a delegation from The Kingdom of Jordan at our centre in Hammersmith.

The inspirational visit was a fantastic opportunity for Julie Graham, CEO of Employment Services; Jonty Rooke, Head of Employer Services; Anton Eckersley, Director of International Relations; and Paul Russell, Senior Relationship and Integration Manager to share best practices and insights into how we support with specialist partners and progressive employers to assist jobseekers in their employment journey.

The prison conversation that set me on the road to a new life

It was a conversation with a fellow prisoner that Scott pinpoints as a key moment when he realised he had to turn his back on a life of crime.

Scott had already served a total of two years for offences including armed robbery and possession of imitation firearms when he was just 14, and five years later he was sentenced to 12 years for grievous bodily harm (GBH).

It was at HMP Parc that he got talking to an elderly prisoner and recalls: “Something just clicked. I thought I didn’t want to be at that age with no friends, no family, no future, nothing.”

“A prison officer who was with me at the time said: ‘Scott, there’s got to be more to life than this’.”

It set him on a long road that now sees him doing vital work as an Accommodation Advisor for Ingeus’s Justice division in Manchester, supporting others who have been through the criminal justice system.

The prison officer suggested Scott’s passion for sport and fitness might be something he could build on to restart his life.

He took sports courses while in prison and on release six months early immediately went to work to support his young daughter.

He says: “I was cleaning toilets in a nightclub because I thought if you can do it for £7 a week in prison, I’m quite happy to do it for £200 a week to put food on my kid’s table.

“Having a daughter was the thing that kept me on the straight and narrow.”

He became a professional Thai boxer and ultramarathon runner but it eventually took its toll on his body so he looked for something else.

After a spell working for Liverpool charity Inside Connections, which supports current and former prisoners, he moved into the recruitment sector before spotting a job with Ingeus, working on the JETS programme designed to offer fast, targeted support to people recently unemployed.

From there he moved to the Restart Scheme helping long-term jobseekers find new careers but his heart was set on joining the company’s Justice division: “I wanted to help people to stop doing what I had done.”

A community-based post with the Accommodation Services team became available, working from a busy Probation Service office in Manchester helping former offenders struggling to find homes.

“A lot of people think then can go to the city council and will be found accommodation, but that rarely happens.

“We support them to overcome the barriers that are holding them back, including those who are already homeless.

“That might mean helping with their mental and physical wellbeing, finances, getting an official ID or clearing immigration difficulties. We work alongside specialist welfare charities and local authority organisations such as Mayor Andy Burnham’s Manchester Homelessness Partnership.”

One day a week he is based at a drop-in centre for homeless people and one night a week he volunteers at a shelter for street sleepers.

Forty-three-year-old Scott, married for 10 years with a nine-year-old son in addition to

his now 16-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, says completely shaking off his past is a work in progress.

“Like being an alcoholic you are always going to be an ex-offender for the rest of your life. However, I use my crime background to help others. I’ve been through it and come out the other side.

“I can relate to them, I understand the issues they have and their frustrations, I know why they act the way they do. If they are kicking off that doesn’t faze me.

“I chose to work for Ingeus because of the support it gives me and the fact it places a high value on lived experience. My background has never been an issue, managers are committed to ensuring a good work-life balance and they offer plenty of scope to progress.”

Continuous improvement in action

Learning at Work Week 2024, ran by the Campaign for Learning, took place from the 13th to 19th May and focused on building learning cultures in the workplace. The theme for 2024 is ‘Learning Power’, which emphasizes the importance of lifelong learning and development within organisations.

The Ingeus Continuous Improvement (CI) Academy provides opportunities to help Ingeus employees learn new skills and think differently about their roles.

As colleagues prepare for this year’s graduation, Ingeus Head of Legal, Carla Raffinetti, is leading her team with

more refined and efficient ways of working. We caught up with Carla to hear about her CI journey is helping the legal function move from being ‘stuck in the weeds’ to navigating open waters – and the benefits it’s delivering for all.

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American broadcaster Lloyd Dobyns described continual improvement as an ‘unending journey’. For Carla, who heads Ingeus’ team of legal eagles, completing her CI Academy Lean Six Sigma Green Belt was just the start of greater things to come.

“For me, the most important thing was learning the skills to implement positive changes,” says Carla, who became one of Ingeus’ first Change Agents. “Law school taught me academic skills, how to be a good solicitor. But lawyers are not generally trained to think operationally about how we work.”

Putting her newly acquired skills into action, Carla identified bottlenecks in the

team’s workflow and set about streamlining processes to free up her solicitors’ time for the most strategically important matters:

“The first thing I did was to allow business leaders to sign low risk, low value contracts themselves. We then spent a year producing template contracts that the business could access easily, without reinventing the wheel each time. It was clear we’d been spending unnecessary time on unimportant, repetitive tasks. We were stuck in the weeds and the volume of work was becoming unsustainable. “These changes have taken careful planning and time to implement. It’s been a real team effort and we’re seeing the results now. CI improvements have changed

the way we do law here at Ingeus and are making a significant difference to the legal team’s working lives.”

The Ingeus Academy partners with the Lean Competency System and provides training in Lean and Six Sigma tools and techniques.

“The modular top up training and Change Agent forums help refresh my focus,” continues Carla. “Next up for us is a contract lifecycle management system; an easy to use, on-demand service which will again make life easier for us and the rest of the business.

“Seeing CI theory being put into action and positively changing the way we work is hugely satisfying and, of course, it will continue!”

Pioneering Paul finds coffee, confidence, and hopes of a new career

Paul, 37, from Kirkby in Merseyside loves to chat. He enjoys bus and train travel, especially if there’s a coffee and biscuit waiting at his destination.

He’s also severely autistic and actively looking for work through the government’s new Pioneer: Work and Health Programme.

Supported by the Ingeus teams in Kirkby, Huyton, and Liverpool, Paul has already undertaken a seasonal vacancy at a family-run cosmetics and pamper shop and hopes that the confidence and customer service skills he gained will soon lead to his next retail role.

“I loved meeting new people and demonstrating the products, all the staff and customers were so friendly,” says Paul, who had been unemployed since 2018. “The shop

manager is autistic too and we immediately clicked. It was good to be busy and focussed on the customers.

“Having autism doesn’t affect what I can do at work – I just need the right role and environment.”

Ingeus Employment Specialist Damien provides one-to-one support to Paul and took time to get to know his skills and career aspirations. Recognising his love of being out and about, Damien invited Paul to the local Ingeus offices to get to know the staff and search for job vacancies. After Paul indicated his interest in retail, a conversation with the Liverpool shop manager led to an induction and temporary Christmas role.

“Paul has many valuable skills to offer an employer,” says Damien. “He previously worked for seven years at a motoring retailer and has now refreshed his customer service skills with his Christmas role. He is incredibly personable and just needs an understanding employer to see his strengths – which is where Ingeus and Pioneer can help.”

“Having autism doesn’t affect what I can do at work – I just need the right role and environment.”

Ingeus offers Work and Health Programme’s Pioneer support across the North West, Greater Manchester, and Central London. It provides in-work training opportunities for people with disabilities and health conditions furthest from the labour market, sourcing local vacancies from a wide range of employers. In-work support is a key feature of the programme, ensuring candidates and employers learn together to ensure successful outcomes.

“Paul’s confidence has grown and grown,” continues Damien. “He is a true shining star and huge advocate of Pioneer. He manages three cups of coffee and a biscuit on every visit and tells everyone how great Ingeus is!”

Paul, who lives in a Shared Lives supported accommodation scheme in Kirkby has an active social and church life. He adds: “I like to be busy – I hate sitting around and would like to come off benefits in due course. Work is good for your mental health and gets me out meeting people – my favourite thing.”

The importance of mental health first aid skills

In recognition of Learning at Work Week and Mental Health Awareness Week (both 13-19 May 2024), Ingeus’ Learning and Development Specialist, Lesley Ozwell, shares her experience of becoming an accredited mental health first aider and how to recognise signs someone may be struggling with their mental health.

Joining Ingeus 14 years ago to train young people on our employability programmes was a complete change of tack for me, but I can honestly say I’ve never looked back. In 2015 I was given the opportunity to train as an Ingeus mental health first aider and for me, it was a career defining and life changing experience.

Learning the skills to help someone at a low point in life was a privilege and led me to specialise in mental health training as part of Ingeus’ wider learning and development team. The student became the teacher; I undertook Mental Health First Aid England’s specialist training to become an accredited instructor and now deliver training to colleagues across Ingeus.

I’m thrilled when I see the popularity of learning mental health first aid skills at work. We know that supporting vulnerable people on our programmes is not always an easy task. Like any commercial business, we have objectives to achieve and due to the nature of our contracts, change is never far away. More than 13% of our colleagues have a declared disability and while our culture prioritises self-care, we’re mindful of the fact that every year one in four of us will experience a mental health problem. Wellbeing sits centre stage at Ingeus and we now have 370 qualified mental health first aiders across the business.

Lesley is a Learning and Development Specialist, MHFAi, and Diversity Champion at Ingeus. She is also an Associate of the Institute of Employability Professionals. She supports the induction of new team members and the continuing professional development of Ingeus colleagues. She specialises in mental health, neurodiversity, and safeguarding training.

We don’t train people to diagnose, more to recognise symptoms of mental tension, offer peer-to-peer support to anyone struggling, and provide an appropriate intervention.

A two way street

I think increased awareness of mental health has made people curious. Yes of course, Ingeus managers want to know how best to support their team members, and frontline colleagues want skills to help our participants, but learners also personally benefit. Learning at work boosts self-confidence, self-esteem and helps foster connections with others. I see it every day. It helps people develop a growth mindset, offers new perspectives, and put simply, gives you a buzz. It helps us be more productive, gives us an edge, and in the case of MHFA can change and save lives. It’s a gift.

Colleagues report that they’ve used their newly learnt skills outside of work to help family members and friends, and I have frequently used them in the wider world. Mental health first aid is a skill for life, just like physical first aid.

There’s no reason anyone can’t learn to be a mental health first aider and we go to great lengths to ensure the training is accessible to all. Colleagues may have their own lived experience of mental health issues so we’re very mindful of triggers, using helpful language, and having a safe and confidential way of taking some time out of sessions if needed. We allow adaptations for neurodiverse colleagues who struggle to sit in front of a webcam, can arrange sign language translators, and keep group sizes sensible so that I can monitor and assess everyone adequately. The two-day course is very structured with case studies and quizzes supporting each module.

Raising awareness

An important part of mental health first aid training involves raising awareness and

reducing the stigma of poor mental health. It’s incredibly hard to recover from a mental health problem on your own. You need other people to listen, to give advice, and care. That’s why I feel that awareness weeks such as Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) and Learning at Work Week (LAW Week) are so important – and why these two especially combine so well together.

One of the themes of this year’s LAW Week is The Power to Connect: how learning forms connections between people and ideas, building relationships and new perspectives. I can’t think of a more apt example than learning mental health first aid skills.

This week gives us the chance to educate, discuss and ask questions. It is a very lonely place when you’re experiencing poor mental health; I hope these weeks help people realise they’re not alone and encourages more people to learn mental health first aid skills.

Colin’s one-stop-shop to success

It wasn’t until everyone began to wear masks in the pandemic that 36 year-old Colin realised how dependent he had become on lip reading.

His degenerative hearing loss means that even with hearing aids, several higher frequencies are inaudible, and he struggles to differentiate the common building block sounds of conversation.

“I struggle with conversation a lot as many sounds – tee, dee, ee, gee – all sound the same to me,” explains Colin, who lives in Wigan with his family.

“I have lived with hearing loss for many years and learned to unconsciously adapt but it seriously impacted my last full time admin role when I couldn’t manage the necessary phone calls. I tried some temporary part-time jobs afterwards but was then unemployed for almost a year.

“It wears on you, being unemployed. It feels like you are adrift, and the longer you’re out of work, the more difficult it is to find a chance to get back in.”

When Colin was referred by Wigan Jobcentre Plus to Ingeus and the Restart Scheme in September 2023,

he found his perfect chance. The programme supports unemployed people into jobs with local employers and Ingeus has formed a proactive partnership with local retailer Rebuild with Hope, which runs a discount store in Wigan’s Grand Arcade.

“Ingeus helped me rework my CV and were completely supportive of me picking my own direction, while also offering advice and avenues I hadn’t considered. They arranged an online British Sign Language course for me and thankfully introduced me to Rebuild with Hope.”

At Ingeus’ suggestion, Colin began part-time volunteering at the shop in December. By the start of April, having realised he could amply manage in the store’s environment, Colin began a full time, retail assistant job. He has undertaken first aid and electrical safety testing training and is set to begin a Level 3 Retail Team Leader Apprenticeship. His very own one-stop-shop to success!

“Not much needs to be adapted. Any non-face-toface communications are through text or email as I struggle to hear with phones, and I occasionally miss things if people speak quietly or very quickly.

“I enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and friendly people at Rebuild with Hope. There’s a real sense of community within the store, both with colleagues and customers. I really value being out of the house, the routine, again. Interacting with other people and working to new goals. I’m looking forward to the team leader training and saving for a holiday.”

New programme to support South London residents gain skills and find work

Ingeus and the South London Partnership are excited to announce the launch a new employment and skills support programme for residents in the South London Boroughs of Merton, Sutton, Croydon, Kingston and Richmond Upon Thames.

The Shared Prosperity Fund People and Skills South London Partnership Programme will support 660 unemployed residents with comprehensive, wraparound services to progress them on their journey closer to the labour market. The programme aims to support at least 224 people into good quality jobs. The programme will be open to any resident of the South London Partnership Boroughs who is unemployed with right to work in the UK, and the programme will be accepting self-referrals and referrals from community support organisations such as charities and community groups. Referrals commence in May 2024 through to March 2025.

Ingeus has an unrivalled track record delivering employment support programmes for Londoners, supporting over 23,000 residents into employment since 2018 through the Central London Works Work and Health Programme, Pioneer, and Connecting Communities Programmes. Ingeus also delivers the Department for Work and Pensions’ Restart Scheme across Central & West London.

The South London Partnership is a subregional collaboration of five London boroughs working to promote the interests of South London’s people, places, and businesses.

Through its own extensive experience of place-based support, Ingeus recognises the importance that effective and localised service integration can play in providing effective support for London residents. South London partnership will build on their existing placebased leadership to offer a comprehensive network of fully integrated and localised services, including skills and training, health and disability and financial support.

Beam and Belina Consulting will work alongside Ingeus as trusted supply chain partners to provide additional specialist support for programme participants.

Getting to know you...

Analyn Haswell

This month we chatted to Analyn Haswell about her role as Continuous Improvement (CI) Learning and Development Advisor.

“I develop and deliver training for the CI Academy and co-ordinate administrative duties to help enhance colleagues’ learning experiences, skills and professional development. I help to manage the endto-end training process, ensuring smooth coordination of learner onboarding, scheduling, and tracking learner progress. Most recently, I’m proud to have developed a bitesize suite of IT training for programmes such as Excel, PowerPoint and MS Teams to help upskill and strengthen people’s technical skills. I love being able to support and coach Ingeus employees as they go through their Lean Six Sigma journey, so they can be a better part of our Continuous Improvement culture and create impactful, positive changes. This academic year, we are helping 73 amazing colleagues gain their Yellow Belt and Green Belt Lean Six Sigma Accreditation. Watching them grow their skills and succeed really makes the job worthwhile.”

We asked Analyn to answer life’s essential ‘this or that’ questions:

Sunrise or sunset?

I’m a night owl, so I probably lean towards a sunset more.

Fruit or vegetables?

Fruits, I have a sweet tooth, and I’m a tropical Asian baby.

Book or movie? Probably book. I love to escape into a good book and create my own imagery and visions of the characters.

City or countryside?

I’m probably more city because I love the vibrancy and chaotic creative energy of the city.

Tea or coffee?

Tea. Especially since moving to the UK.

Text or call? Call! I love to talk!

Summer or winter?

Summer. I like to be warm and have fun in the sun.

Playlists or podcasts? Playlists, but that’s only because I’ve not really explored podcasts enough. Vanilla or chocolate? Depends what mood I’m in and what you’re using these in.

Driver or passenger?

I am predominantly a passenger now, as haven’t driven since I moved to the UK.

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