Background
One of the Governments five missions is to kickstart economic growth with good jobs and improved productivity. The Get Britain Working White Paper quotes – “Building a thriving and inclusive labour market and increasing the number of people in work is central to achieving the government’s number one mission to grow the economy.” The ambition is for a more inclusive economy which enables people to get into work and get on at work, ensuring employment opportunity for all.
In the UK, there are 1.9million people who would like to work but are not participating in the labour market – often due to health issues or disability. The funding for Connect to Work will support disabled people, those with health conditions and people with complex barriers to employment, to seek to find suitable work, by offering them voluntary support based on the high-fidelity model of Supported Employment.
Connect to Work will take a collaborative, locally led approach to tackling ‘Hidden Unemployment’. It will help connect local work, health and skills support. The funding provides a coherent, systematic and joined up approach to maximise the benefits available for individuals and local communities.
Overarching Programme Requirements
Connect to Work will primarily help disabled people, people with health conditions and those with more complex barriers to work who are outside the labour market in ‘Hidden Unemployment’ who wish to be in employment, to find a suitable job and sustain work. The programme will also help those in work but are at risk of falling out of the labour market (and who will struggle to get back into work if they were to lose their job) to retain employment.
Connect to Work is a voluntary programme to help tackle economic inactivity by providing a specific for of support targeted at the right people at the right time, based on their individual circumstances. Connect to Work will deliver the evidence-based Supported Employment model ‘place, train and maintain’. The Connect to Work service must use both models of Supported Employment; IPS (Individual Placement Support) and SEQF (Supported Employment Quality Framework).
Better Connect are applying to deliver the IPS element of support across York and North Yorkshire. IPS integrates employment support alongside primary and secondary health service, and other support services. Connect to Work matches participants to open labour market jobs and opportunities quickly and provides support to the employer, as well as the participants, to ensure that work is sustained.
Delivery partners will be expected to provide a complete end-to-end service, following all stages of the supported employment model including awareness raising and marketing, vocational profiling, job match, employer engagement, and on and off the job support. Support will be delivered through Employment Specialist roles.
All participants must be triaged. The most appropriate support model for the participant should not be predetermined, and delivery partners must work with other service providers and provision to determine the most appropriate support for Participants.
Connect to Work will be made available across the entire region either through an established base or outreach.
All delivery partners must commit to engaging with the IPS Fidelity Assessment scales and will be expected to collect evidence to support that their IPS support shows high fidelity.
If you are interested in being included in the Connect to Work partnership, please complete the application form associated with this guidance document (via JotForms). Supplementary information including the Partner Declaration Form and Budget information must be submitted using the templates provided. We are unable to progress ANY applications that do not meet all application requirements.
Connect to Work is very different from the other employability programmes that are currently being led by Better Connect and as such our approach to partnership selection has been further developed to account for this. We anticipate that this Connect to Work partnership will be reasonably small in comparison to other Better Connect led employability programmes.