A low-cost sustainable way to build capacity and enable more individuals to start to rebuild their lives at an early stage, ultimately resulting in people getting a job or restarting their career more quickly.
When Sara was granted permission to work, she asked Refugees & Mentors (R&M) for help to get a job. She had been in the UK for just over a year, attending some community ESOL classes at a refugee support organisation and waiting for an ESOL Entry 1 college place.
Sara had worked in a shop before fleeing her country and cared for her grandmother for several years. R&M asked Sara if she had thought about the type of job she would like to do now and did she have a dream job for the future? She said a shop or warehouse job. We asked again if she had other dreams for the future? Sara said she’d like to be a nurse but would struggle because of English. She didn’t have a CV and had not volunteered in the UK.
What if this story was different? What if she’d had this conversation when she started community ESOL, was supported to volunteer in care and had already spent six months in a role, gaining UK experience, practising English skills and rebuilding her self-confidence? She may well have asked how she could get a job as a nurse.
Historically, employability support has always been at the bottom of the list of needs which refugee support organisations work tirelessly to meet, after housing, asylum support, benefits, health, immigration issues and ESOL. Whilst resources for these organisations have not increased, demand certainly has, and over the last few years they have responded to systemic failure in the asylum and housing systems and the impact of this on service users and communities they are embedded in.
Understandably, then, the issue of employability can get relegated in a hierarchy of demands. But gaining a job, ideally a good job, is key to integration. It could have significant impact if organisations could find a way to support individuals at an early stage with employability. Yes, there is a large employability sector – but these services are predominantly for people with permission to work and can be difficult to navigate.
Most refugee support organisations offer community ESOL. Integrating employability more fully into community ESOL is a low-cost sustainable way to build capacity and enable more individuals to start to rebuild their lives at an early stage, ultimately resulting in people getting a job or restarting their career more quickly. With the right learning materials, organisational commitment and good links with volunteer support organisations, refugee support organisations can help individuals to make informed choices at an early stage, increase skills (particularly English and digital) and mitigate gaps in their CV.
Activities and scenarios based on developing employability skills, such as recognising, talking and writing about attributes to go into a job application or develop a CV, can provide fantastic opportunities to develop language skills too.
Facilitating opportunities for people to volunteer can also enhance employability. Already, many organisations rely on people seeking asylum to volunteer with them to help deliver their services. We see first-hand the benefits of this for volunteers: increased confidence, sense of purpose and belonging, reduced isolation, UK work experience and for those learning English, the opportunity to develop English speaking and listening skills in context, alongside working on their English in the classroom.
Not everyone will volunteer, take up digital skills support, write their first CV or feel ready to start thinking about work in the future. But if five people out of a class of thirty take any of these steps these are great outcomes. More individuals could gain UK work experience, be more ready to join the world of work and build a career.
How can we make this happen?
Embedding employability into community ESOL and setting employability outcome targets, requires a high level of commitment by organisation boards and managers. Alongside this, our thoughts are that organisations would most likely need to;
- Initially increase capacity to create and implement a development plan.
- Draw on ESOL and employability expertise to develop good quality learning materials.This could be done alone or in collaboration with other organisations, and should build on the experience of organisations and projects that have already explored embedding employability into ESOL classes, such as Refugee Action’s Working English North project.
- Support volunteer & community-based ESOL teachers on an ongoing basis, either internally or by developing support networks and regular opportunities to share experience and expertise at regional events, such as those run by Migrant English Support Hub (MESH);
- Develop and maintain good relationships with volunteer support organisations.
- Work towards a region-wide approach by developing a flexible ESOL &employability scheme of work and a pool of resources accessible by all stakeholder organisations.
Information about the authors
This blog was written by Mandy Littlewood, manager of Refugees & Mentors CIC (Greater Manchester) and John Zavos, Director of MESH (Yorkshire and Humberside).
Migrant English Support Hub is a charity which aims to support the coordination of adult English language provision across Yorkshire and the Humber, helping to meet the needs of the region's most disadvantaged and marginalised migrants.
Refugees & Mentors CIC are based in Greater Manchester - they support refugees, people seeking asylum and vulnerable migrants to improve their employment prospects and get jobs.
