An innovative partnership of 15 Wolverhampton Voluntary Sector Organisations and Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, focusing on the development of skills and employability has supported over 300 local people in the past two months, with hundreds more expected to benefit in the months ahead.
The Skills Connect Partnership is a Government funded project, administered by the West Midlands Combined Authority, which has received over £700K from the Community Renewal Fund (CRF) – (a pilot for the Shared Prosperity Fund, which will replace funding from the EU).
The partnership is led by Wolverhampton Voluntary Sector Council (WVSC) and is one of only eight projects funded by the CRF in the West Midland Region.
Ian Darch, CEO of WVSC said “we have a brilliant and diverse partnership, working across all our communities to help ensure that everyone can get the support they need. Delivery partners expressed their enthusiasm: Suffia Perveen from the Ethnic Minority Council stressed the importance of “working together for a better tomorrow”; Adam Bhardwaj, delighted that his organisation, Bilston Resource Centre, has the opportunity, through this project to make a difference stressed that it has “enabled BRC to deliver innovative programmes in the community;, while Marie Billington from Gatis Community Space highlighted the opportunity to “put people’s needs first”.
The Haven are using the funds to support victims of domestic abuse to rebuild their lives and TLC College are delivering activities to introduce customers to work in “early years”. Sarah Abbiss and Mahmood Khan from those organisations both stressed the projects importance to local communities. This was supported by Director of Beacon Centre for the blind, Ian Burns MBE who said: “we are proud to be working alongside our community partners to make a difference “and Stephanie Mackey of the Black Country Healthcare NHS foundation Trust stressed the importance of the project in providing “great new opportunities for people within our communities to develop their skills within employment.
To find out more about the project, including how to benefit from the support available, please contract Gurpreet Sahota at WVSC on: sahota@wolverhamptonvsc.org.uk or any of the project partners listed below.
Partners of the Wolverhampton Skills Connect Partnership:
Access to Business - Simon Moore Simon@access2business.co.uk
Aladdin's Education Ltd - Yusuf Shafi achieve@aladdinseducation.com
Arise Training - Maxine megwlv@outlook.com
Aspiring Futures CIC - Sofia Haider Sofia.Haider@aspiring-futures.co.uk
Beacon Centre - Helen Brown HBrown@beaconvision.org
Bilston Resource Centre - Adam Bhardwaj adam.bhardwaj@btconnect.com
Black Country NHS Trust - Stephanie Henderson stephanie.henderson3@nhs.net
Ethnic Minority Council - Suffia Perveen sperveen@ethnicminoritycouncil.org
Gatis Community Space - Maria Billington gatisgardeners@gmail.com
Jobchange - Pat Kemp pat.kemp@jobchange2007.com
The Haven Wolverhampton - Sarah Abbiss Sarah.Abbiss@havenrefuge.org.uk
The Refugee and Migrant Centre - Steven Bayliss steven@rmcentre.org.uk
The Workers' Educational Association - Ian Cooper icooper@wea.org.uk
TLC College - Mahmood Khan mkhan@tlccollege.org.uk
YMCA Black Country Group - Louise Kumar louise.kumar@ymcabc.org.uk