Wrekin’s Social Inclusion Consultant, shares her story and experiences in her role

Gill Price, valued member of the Continuous Improvement Team at The Wrekin Housing Group, talks passionately about her role and discusses future plans for returning volunteering programmes as well as work experience placements at The Group.

“Like many people I landed in my role by chance. After studying Philosophy and Psychology at University, I was always drawn to the idea of working with people. Whilst there I worked part time at The Fawcett Library in London where the Women’s Suffrage Movement archives are kept. I returned to university to qualify as a librarian in North Manchester where there was a lot of social deprivation and cultural diversity.

“I relocated to Shropshire and took some time out for my children. I took on a part time role as a Care & Support Worker working with the elderly and terminally ill. I then found myself at The Furniture Scheme where I was working as a HR Learning and Development Manager. I was balancing studying, running volunteer and work experience programmes and other social inclusion projects. That brought me to work alongside Wrekin around 8 years ago and to work for Wrekin on social value and inclusion projects more widely across The Group in 2018.

“I have always got a real buzz from the work I do and a sense of pride in seeing people build confidence, learn skills and move on in life. It is only in later years that I have come to see the roots of this drive in me for championing those who are often undervalued or excluded from opportunities yet manage to get through life’s challenges.

“I always want to reach more people with the social inclusion work I do, some people are still excluded through having fewer life chances, whether that is being made redundant, having limited skills or little work experience, poor mental health or disabilities. Perhaps if we ran out of socially excluded people that would be a good thing, there would be more true equality.

“Collective goals around social inclusion are to get people into opportunities again after a very difficult 18 months for everyone. Covid-19 has really highlighted some of those inequalities, if there can be any positives at all, then perhaps that is one of them. Everyone knows how communities have gone above and beyond to house the homeless, support families, pick up shopping or prescriptions for neighbours and even strangers. I hope we don’t forget that.

“Going forward we have a lot of work to do. We expect there will be an increase in the numbers unemployed, as a response we are developing the Wrekin Skills Academy aimed at engaging with tenants, customers of care and support and their families to build confidence, become involved residents or volunteer in one of our Extra Schemes. People can learn new skills, get help with CV writing, their job search and get involved if eligible in our employability skills programmes like Building Better Opportunities and Kickstart.

“Volunteering and Work Experience programmes mostly stopped in March last year but we are planning a relaunch. I know Activity and Events Coordinators are already delivering much missed social activities across our schemes, in a Covid safe way. We understand some people will need to build confidence to do that and others are raring to go! There will come a point where we can reintroduce volunteer opportunities to help support that. Similarly for work experience placements we are working towards reintroducing that as restrictions allow, whether that be for young people in education or those looking to build skills so they can gain experience to move into employment.

“We have recently signed up as a Cornerstone Employer working with schools as well as colleges in partnership with Marches Local Enterprise Partnership and Careers and Enterprise Company in addition to other employers to support the delivery of careers guidance work in schools. We’ll do this by offering work experience, virtual activity based tasks, mock interviews and getting involved in careers fair events. We have done this work for many years but this provides a framework and structure to work to. It is also an opportunity to promote Wrekin as an employer of choice attracting excellent employees for the future.

“Now we are back to business as usual we have been able to focus on what being a Cornerstone Employer means to us. Here are some of upcoming action plans:

“Reopening staff volunteering opportunities and developing a programme of activities for staff to sign up to. Activities could be supporting an Employability Event at a local school delivering a session to young people about their job role at Wrekin. It will also include other projects such as litter picking, creating a community garden like the one at Hall Barn or helping the Exotic Zoo relocate, which has been a recent project that many of our trades and grounds maintenance teams were involved in.
“Offering a structured work experience programme across different roles and teams but targeting schools and colleges where we have high density housing stock.
“Supporting careers events such as mock interview days, careers fairs, talks and presentations, virtual and face to face.
“Creating a library of film resources and task based activities for schools to use in lessons.
“Exploring work with primary schools possibly through the community pledge work.

“Regarding the future of employability, there is greater national focus on this so it isn’t going away. We are already seeing through the Building Better Opportunities programme and the Kickstart Scheme an increase in the number of young people not only looking for work but also those who are wanting to change career direction to something with more transferable skills, as they feel this will benefit their careers in the long term.

“I am most proud of having lived experience tenants and customers getting involved through helping us to develop policies, procedures and shape services that really are inclusive and don’t inadvertently exclude any individual or group whatever their background or specific characteristics, I think we can learn so much. I have learned a lot already and this is only the start, so I am excited for the future and continuing to make a difference to people’s lives.”

At Wrekin we offer a variety of opportunities in employability support, work experience placements, the building better opportunities fund and the resident involvement campaign. If you would like to find out more about any of these opportunities, please click the appropriate links above.

16th July 2021