Meet our new Board members
Debra Burnett • Jun 22, 2021
We are head over heels to announce the appointment of three new Non-Executive Directors (NED’s) at Ways into Work.
A huge welcome to Maurice George, Hassan Khan and James Welchman. They join our existing NED’s Claire Gardner and Hugh Chamberlain, and along with Becky Beechen, our MD, they now make up our new board. We are so grateful to Hugh and Claire for their help and guidance over the last few years. We are particularly indebted to Hugh for really sticking with us and providing ongoing support over some particularly challenging times in earlier years. Moving forwards we are all really excited about our newest board members who coming from varied backgrounds bring with them a wealth of diverse skills and knowledge from business roles, to education and lived experience. This also means a step up for Hugh who will now chair the board, a role we are very appreciative to him for fulfilling unofficially over the last few years.
When recruiting our NED’s we were so pleased and surprised with the amount of really high quality individuals wanting to share their experience and help further the mission of Ways into Work. We've always had a plan to create an Advisory Board representing our stakeholders and forming an important part of our governance in terms of operational and strategic decision making. While the iron was hot, we struck! So we are also welcoming Scott Watkin (Client rep); Graham Heffer (Employer rep); Jane Kidd (Parent rep) and Simon Carter (Employee Ownership rep) to our newly founded Advisory Board. In addition to their NED roles Maurice will represent education and Hassan will chair the advisory board. We also hope to gain a commissioner/funder rep in the future.
For us this also marks a new chapter in Ways into Work’s history. Now 6 years old in our current formation as a Community Interest Company, we’ve been through a lot of the early challenges that businesses face, finding our feet and growing whilst still trying to set our foundations. With a lot of that under our belt we are starting to become much more planful and forward facing. We are thrilled to have such a strong support team behind us and together we are working on developing our long term vision for the future of Ways into Work, so we can 'Change
even more Lives, One Job at a Time'. Watch this space …
Photo by William Sinclair
on Unsplash
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An incredible good news story from one of our clients, who explains how the support from us has changed her life and helped her get her dream job!
When Rajpal first became a client at Ways into Work he had been struggling with looking for work and a good job match. Rajpal has a mild learning disability and mental health issues and had not worked for over ten years except to help now and then at his family’s supermarket. He had not worked for such a long time as he was not well enough to think about his career and life choices. When he joined Ways into Work as a Job Seeker and was assigned an Employment Coach who spent a long time getting to know him, doing a vocational profile and job matching. It was decided that the best first step was for Rajpal was to experience what different jobs and roles are like and what they would entail. Ways into Work then supported him in applying for various roles in retail and did mock interviews where he gained lots of practice. He secured a few interviews but was not offered any of the jobs. Rajpal had begun taking an interest in going to the gym and informed his Employment Coach that he would like a job at the gym. After approaching the employer, his Employment Coach secured an interview for him. He was so happy that at the interview when asked why he would like to work at the gym, he pulled out of his pocket a handwritten lengthy list of reasons why he liked the job and the skills he had to offer. This showed the employer his passion for the job and Rajpal was offered the job, working 3 days (24 hours) a week to begin with. As the leisure centre was 7 miles away, his Employment Coach supported him with applying for Access To Work transport to and from work. They also taught him and his parents how to claim his monthly ATW transport and supported him with the change of circumstances in his benefits. When Rajpal first started to work at the Leisure Centre he solely worked in the gym and his role included ensuring that all the equipment was working and clean, as well as dealing with lots of customer enquiries. This was quite a challenge for Rajpal to begin with, as it was a large premise and no two days were the same. With Job Coaching , Ways into Work was able to support Rajpal by helping to create a routine for him and also discussing with his supervisor a way of building new tasks into his days as the weeks progressed.
