Work?

An employment charity's calling for businesses across North Hampshire to employ more disadvantaged and disabled people.

The Shaw Trust's found jobs for more than 7000 people in the county who were out of work due to ill-health or social circumstances, but it needs more businesses to get involved.

Katherine Connor, District Manager for Shaw Trust told Heart:

“The programme is proven and we’re looking forward to helping even more people in 2010 but we do need local organisations to work with us.

In the same way that we support our clients back to employment, we work in partnership with local business to ensure they get the right people with the right skills. 

In this way, companies get the resource in place that is needed and our clients benefit both financially and emotionally from being back in work.”

Dad Paul Smith from Basingstoke was one of them.

He told Heart he was in a desperate state before he found work with The Shaw Trust:

"I used to drink too much and I was out of work. I was pretty much stuck in the benefit trap as I saw it at the time: a comfort bubble around me of my benefits. That was it I wasn't gonna get a job and I didn’t have the application to do that at that time."

But Paul started volunteering and this led to part time work before being employed full time.

After 8 years of being unemployed, he's now got more confidence and feels worthwhile.

"I feel better because I'm up in the morning going to work. My children see me going off to work every morning and coming home at night so my life’s improved dramatically."

To find out more about how to get back into work or to find employees for your business, call the Basingstoke Shaw Trust Office on: 01256 853340