More people will have access to one-to-one dedicated employment support thanks to Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundations Trust’s Thrive into Work service.
The Trust’s Thrive into Work service, which supports people living in Dudley and Walsall with physical and mental health conditions to find and retain work, has now expanded to deliver a specialist service to support people across the whole of the West Midlands.
This West Midlands-wide specialist service will be accessible to those who are over 18 and have:
- Neurodevelopmental conditions such as a learning disability or autism
- Past criminal convictions and/or have been referred to a criminal justice service
- No registered home address or are at risk of being homeless
The team’s employment specialists will help those referred to the service to find, and more importantly, stay in work alongside offering a range of support with things such as benefits advice, CV writing, interview techniques and much more.
The service which originally started as a trial, piloted between July 2018 and March 2020, in which time the service received over 2,000 referrals and helped just under 200 people to find paid employment.
Chief Executive Mark Axcell said, “I am delighted we have been given the opportunity to support more people into finding and retaining employment, and not only across the Black Country but all across the West Midlands.”
He added, “We understand that it’s been a difficult time to find and retain employment during the Covid-19 pandemic so for us to be able to offer this service as a mental health and learning disability Trust, is more important now than ever.”
For more information about the Thrive into Work service or to access the service, contact the team on bchft.thriveemploymentservice@nhs.net or call 01384 324645.