17th October 2011
Could a community work exchange help people find employment & skills?
Working with people across Cornwall, we have co-designed a service that brings people who are at risk of redundancy, unemployed or looking for an employment change together to facilitate the sharing of knowledge, skills, services, advice and positivity. New Work Exchange is a "community hub" where individuals use the resource of the community to help meet their employment goals, increase their employment prospects and quality of life.
We envisage that "new work exchange" hubs could be online and/or within existing community facilities such as job centres, libraries or colleges.
This new service aims to address the main aspects that are missing from conventional skills and employment support channels.
Skills Exchange:
Individuals can exchange skills and services amongst a community using a credit system based on time, this can be used by individuals to gain skills in new areas of interest, as a way of updating skills relevant to employment or as a means of accessing free services.
Positive Mentoring:
Individuals can arrange to meet with a mentor; this can be anyone from a life coach to the local electrician, the two individuals arrange a meeting where the mentor can provide the individual with advice in an informal relaxed manner, this might be insights into an industry, advice from someone who has been in their position or just some positive thinking. A mentor shares their advice and in return receives time credits.
Advice Events:
These are events where a group or individuals in similar circumstances and interests can come together in an informal and friendly space and share advice and experiences. Events could be organized by shared interest or location groups.
Professional Connections:
One of the key innovations of the website is that each individual has their own profile which records their activity on the site and can link with business and support providers. This provides an additional level of support, matching up those in need of support with providers; and giving businessa direct link to a pool of potential candidates, providing an opportunity to headhunt talent
Information:
As well as these core-sharing functions the site will also provide a means for discussion and sharing of digital content, which would provide the chance for individuals to share their stories, tips and things that inspire them. A key feature of the service we wish to develop is a radio show which focuses on employment issues, a panel of experts answer questions submitted by listeners as part of a weekly show.
For more information about this project - please watch our video
http://vimeo.com/seacommunications/innovation-in-giving
4th October 2011
Could community radio help people to find skills and jobs?
An innovative new radio show aiming to help those affected by redundancy has been tested at a local radio station in Redruth as part of our bigger project to tackle the issues surrounding redundancy in Cornwall.
The show is just one of seven potential services conceived from New Work Cornwall, the Skills Funding Agency sponsored project we have been leading for the past 18 months.
Listen to the radio show
Duration: 25 minutes
The radio show that aims to give listeners access to support, employment information and advice was conceived from a series of workshops with people facing redundancy or recently made redundant.
At our co-design workshops we asked local people what their employment issues were and discussed potential ways to solve these problems. Many people felt they needed more information about how to set new goals and access employment opportunities in Cornwall. They suggested that a radio show would be a really accessible way of providing that information.
The pilot show, nicknamed "Headhunted", was broadcasted on Redruth radio in September featured Ed with presenter Nick and Lizzie Larbalestier - a professional NLP coach (Neuro-Linguistic Programing) who specializes in confidence building - to look at people's behaviour and how they perceive their life and employment situations.
In a workshop after the show, listeners said that the show offered something useful and was different to that of traditional support and information channels. They suggested that each radio show could offer something different for different areas and that they should be made available to download as a podcast.
Clare Pawley from Truro said, "Discussions about values and confidence building offers me information which I couldn't have got elsewhere."
The feedback from the pilot radio show has been incredibly positive and we envisage that regular podcasts such as these could be made available for the public to download via a website. We'd love to hear from organisations or budding entrepreneurs wishing to work with community radio stations across Cornwall and develop this service as a social enterprise.
11th November 2010
How can data help people to make better choices about their future?
Project / New Work Cornwall
Presenting data, in engaging ways, can help citizens to make better decisions and choices about their future. In Cornwall, for example, there are 8,298 citizens claiming Jobseekers Allowance and 85,600 economically inactive (figures: Dec 2010). The average cost per person per year of someone on benefits is est. £50,000. We believe data can help to solve great social and economic challenges of our time, such as unemployment and deprivation - and so we made this video as part of a pitch for pilot funding to the Technology Strategy Board.
Video / A Little Introduction to the Big Idea
14th October 2010
How can we find and engage people at an early stage of redundancy?
Project / New Work Cornwall
A nice way to unearth the answer is to first map the redundancy process as we did here in a co-design workshop with a mix of agencies, participants, solicitors etc.
This exercise helped the group to recognise a gap in the way employees are supported. Often, within SME's, an employee is made redundant with minimal support and then agencies get on board to help.
However, employers facing a downturn receive support from banks, administrators, accountants or solicitors before then; and these external businesses could encourage employers to make redundancies more responsibly.
Wouldn't it be better if employees were supported before they are made redundant rather than after? Well, this was a vivid message within the co-design workshop and Coodes Solicitors were quick to spot the commercial enterprise behind new schemes.
Harnessing the perspectives of different experts also enabled the group to co-conceive "freedundancy" - a unique user-centred forum where all types of advice and support are exchanged or bartered free of charge. This would be an independent enterprise, consumer driven and co-developed by volunteers who administer it.
So instead of thinking of service providers as the sole providers of service support, here are two great ideas where more and better can be achieved by others. And all this from framing a challenge in the right way.
Vi sit / www.newworkcornwall.co.uk
1st June 2010
How can we quickly gain honest insights from close-knit communities all over Cornwall?
With our cleverly designed Community Reporters pack and Flip camera!
This system empowered recently redundant community members to tap into their own networks to find out what Cornwall thought about work and skills. This provided valuable evidence for our Dott Cornwall New Work project.
The reporters received training in journalistic and digit al skills, and mentoring throughout the process. They were able to support and connect with others in similar circumstances, and we were able to reach people eligible for support and funding through New Work.
23rd April 2010
How can we reach new people about new work?
Project / New Work Cornwall
Engaging people via outreach activities is not easy and sometimes it's a bit soul destroying. Naturally, many people assume you're selling something rather than trying to help them.
An eye catching, Dott branded, classic campervan resolved that issue. We visited five towns over five days to ask people about their experiences of redundancy and the support they received.
We engaged with 151 people, many of which had recently been affected by redundancy (enabling us to hit our targets - tick).
Better still, we learnt the following three things: many people felt let down by the job centre, and were perhaps straying into long-term unemployment, many people received no support from their employer when they were made redundant, affecting confidence, every person we spoke to had no idea of the skills and support programmes available to them.
Knowledge like this leads to answers, and some of the services conceived by New Work started here.
