Status Employment supports people going through the national therapy service IAPT in the Lambeth borough to overcome employment challenges. These could be: finding a new job, retaining a current job, supporting those returning after a period of sick leave, career planning, volunteering, starting education or training, signposting to relevant resources, starting your own business etc.

Lambeth Talking Therapies Service is part of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies service (IAPT) which offers talking therapies for people experiencing mental health challenges. Status Employment have worked in collaboration with IAPT since 2009, jointly supporting people to achieve their goals. We are both passionate about the relationship between work and wellbeing. This project is funded by the DWP and Lambeth CCG.

Status Employment supports people with enduring Mental Health challenges in the London boroughs of Lambeth and Croydon to overcome barriers to employment. These challenges may well encompass: retaining your current job, finding a new job or your first job, supporting you to return to work after a period of unemployment, career planning: determining what work you want to pursue, learning a new skill, starting education or training, starting your own business, signposting to relevant other resources etc.

Status Employment have worked in successfully in collaboration with SLaM Mental Health Trust since 2003, supporting people to achieve their goals through close support such as vocational profiling. We are passionate about the relationship between work and wellbeing. We believe everyone who wants to work can work. This project is funded by the Lambeth CCG and Croydon Council.

The Lead project started in 2018, funded by Iceland Lichtenstein and Norway grants. It is a collaboration with 3 other partner organisations: Health Action Overseas of Romania, ReabiliticiJa of Lithuania, and Consultis of Portugal. The Project develops supported employment provision in these countries, establishing and delivering a supported employment framework for young people under 25 and their families based on the Supported Employment 5 Step Program. Integral to this is the SEQF quality framework that we developed, which the countries are using to map their improvement in standards, helping them to support their young people facing barriers to employment. Partners have started gaining their first jobs for people under 25 with learning disabilities.

It is about Opportunity. The opportunity given to disabled people to live with dignity, independence, and respect.  This project is aimed at giving entrepreneurial skills to the people who are often least expected to become entrepreneurs through self-employment training. The STARTUP project aims to change the low expectation of disabled people, a view held by society, and which disabled people may carry. The STARTUP project develops and supports entrepreneurial initiatives in disabled people, who will become the best advocates for themselves.

The STARTUP project also sets out to train and develop individuals supporting disabled people; to act as advocates in practical, representative, and political ways. However motivated facilitators may be, to succeed they will have to draw on their own resilience, values and belief in the potential and ability of the disabled people they support.

An e-learning platform providing an extensive range of courses in career development, resilience, mental and physical health. Additionally, skill development such as public speaking, IT programs such as word and excel etc. Cademi is used extensively by the likes of John Lewis and Partners. All candidates who engage with the Status service undertake a comprehensive vocational profile to determine their support needs, interests, and job goals.  In addition, our candidates will increasingly receive peer support to introduce them to, and enable them to access, Cademi. The platform will introduce users to a host of free learning tutorials via a process of psychometric testing. We have 50 free places for candidates to take up.

We continue to support candidates through our successful football team Status Addicks and our Drama based programs. Since 2009 Status Employment has embarked on these essentially health and wellbeing programs, which have had an enormously positive effect on their beneficiaries. Most recently, they ensured we engaged some of our more vulnerable candidates throughout the pandemic and successive lockdown periods – please read the Status Addicks and Drama descriptions below.

Emerged from candidates independently playing in a competition in 2009, leading to a recognition of the beneficial impact on social inclusion and contribution to gaining jobs. Funding for two years was subsequently secured through Charlton Athletic Trust & the Football Foundation, and South London and Maudsley.

Since then, we have always had the ‘Status Addicks’ football team that helps participants move towards, gain, and remain in work, as well as maintain their well-being. Football Training is synonymous with gaining employment, delivering positive returns.  Status Addicks have been League Champions in the last three seasons and are now receiving funding from Ladbrokes GVC, which will also provide the means to produce a film celebrating the positive benefits and the teams’ achievements.

We are ever grateful to Catherine Eaglestone who, after completing our trapeze program, also suggested that we might use Drama in a positive way to improve candidates’ confidence and motivation. Embracing this enabled us to form the ‘Moving On’ Program, incorporating Drama and Trapeze and we continue to work with Catherine on new wellbeing projects.

We have continued to use drama in our service provision and have partnered with Morley College and other funders to so, especially during pandemic. Our current drama workshops, which were adapted for online delivery at the beginning of the pandemic, supporting individuals with mental health conditions. We have funding to schedule a programme of 12 weekly workshops, to be delivered digitally until restrictions allow the transition to a hybrid programme when we will include those individuals preferring face to face engagement. It also funds us to produce a film record which we will disseminate widely to expound and celebrate the work and individual achievements.

This is an exciting opportunity to engage with others, share their experiences, building confidence and overcome barriers to employment. Our lead facilitator specialises in adapting techniques from acting for non-actors. The workshops build on the positive impact of creative activity in a non- judgmental environment and have been a great success for our clients. Benefits reported included reductions in medication, self-harm, and suicidal ideation, as well as eating and sleeping better, doing more physical exercise, and socialising more.

In 2017 we started an exciting new project “Virtual DS.” This is a European project bringing aspects of supported employment to people with down syndrome, learning difficulties and their carers’. We did this by creating a series of training programmes using Virtual Reality glasses for the individuals. In June 2018 we delivered several trial runs of some virtual reality exercises for people with learning disabilities in real job situations. By July of 2019 we had trialed the Virtual Reality links with local schools and colleges. Erasmus+ EVR has funded this for the next 3 years and will enable us to develop a workable e platform with exercises and skill training for people with learning disabilities using virtual reality links.