The 'go to' organisation for Local Government improvement in Scotland

Finding a job is difficult, especially when you come to a new country and don't speak the language or know the process. Dundee has a long history of welcoming people from different countries to live and work in the city and we are proud to continue that tradition through “Get Ready for Work”, an eight week partnership programme which seeks to give Syrian refugees, resettled in Dundee under the Home Office's Vulnerable Persons' Resettlement Scheme, the employability and language skills needed to move into employment.

The challenge

In September 2015, both the Prime Minister and Scotland's First Minister made commitments to help those affected and displaced by the civil war in Syria, launching the Syrian Vulnerable Persons' Resettlement Scheme.

We now have around 32 refugee families settled in Dundee, a significant portion of the Scottish total. Within these families there are huge variations in English language ability, from those who are not literate in their own language to others who are educated to university level with excellent English. Some of our refugees have been in Dundee for over two years but, with only three working part-time, there was a growing feeling that we needed to do more to support them into employment. Senior workers from the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) team and the Employability team met to discuss their needs and it was clear that we would only be able to deliver a high quality programme through collaborative working involving a range of Council services and external partners:

• The ESOL team helps new Dundonians with low levels of spoken and written English to realise their potential by gaining language and other skills to participate more fully in community, family, employment and learning. They do this through a flexible and responsive approach and working collaboratively to support learners' wider needs and their progression into further learning, employment and community life.
• The Employability Support Team engages, prepares and supports jobless citizens to participate in the range of Employability Services that help remove barriers to employment, achieving qualifications, gaining work experience and ultimately supporting them into sustainable employment.

Between us, we developed the Get Ready For Work course.

Actions/approach taken

Employability Officers having a consistent presence, along with ESOL Officers, on the Get Ready For Work course has allowed each client to be known and understood as an individual, despite there being a substantial language barrier. This extended, intensive contact allows staff to develop trust with their clients and to gain a much deeper understanding of their employability prospects. For example, in an initial needs assessment, the client may not be able to explain their qualifications and aspirations even with the help of an interpreter. But after being present throughout ESOL elements of the course, an employability officer will be able to glean valuable information about the client then discuss this with them directly as they build the vocabulary to do so. When the client is ready to meet with potential placement providers and employers, the client and staff will then be able to arrange the best fit, based on this trust and deeper understanding of the client's employment goals and capability. Having direct access to employability services also means that clients can be updated in person about the opportunities available to them, for example training opportunities and news about prospective employers in their areas of interest and geographical region.

The teams also identified some other key partners:

• Jobcentre Plus - advice and support to deliver job search sessions
• Yusuf Youth Initiative - provision of an Arabic speaking support worker
• Project Scotland and Wise Group - support to find job placements
• The Making Money Work team - better off calculations to show the difference that being in work would make to household incomes, while also making sure clients were receiving the benefits to which they were entitled

Key to the success of this project was pulling these partners together into a team to provide a `wrap around' service which focuses on local needs.

The project team developed an eight-week course, which seeks to give refugee learners the employability and language skills to move into employment. It was delivered in Menzieshill Community Centre by ESOL staff, who knew the learners and their backgrounds well, together with local employability staff who had the specialist skills, knowledge and contacts to help the learners become `employment ready'. Eight people took part in the pilot programme.

The cultures and traditions around looking for a job and working in Dundee are markedly different to Syria and the addition of an Arabic speaking support worker enabled us to challenge perceptions and significantly enhance the learning experience. Having an advisor from Jobcentre Plus was extremely useful and essential for setting up “Universal Jobsmatch”. The Making Money Work team were able to inform the clients and dispel a few myths that had built up within the community regarding working hours and the financial impact of not working as opposed to working part and full time.

Each session was evaluated and reflected on by the project team each day, as we sought to make improvements for the future. The course was extremely responsive, pulling in different teams and changing sessions as issues arose. On completion, learners were guaranteed a work placement and moved onto the Dundee Employability Pipeline, giving them ongoing support from their local employability officer, who had built a good rapport with them over the eight weeks of the programme.

Impact and results

The outcomes sought from the Get Ready For Work programme were:

• Partnership to support refugees into employment is formed and strengthened.
• Participants gain confidence and self-esteem, become self-motivated and independent learners and job seekers.
• Participants have improved access to jobs.
• Participants have improved language skills.
• Refugees become integrated into Dundee's communities.

Success in achieving these outcomes is evidenced through participant feedback and evaluations, graduation speeches, and partners' evaluation meetings:

• Eight learners enrolled on the first course and 100% of them completed it.
• In their course evaluations, all the learners rated the course as 10/10.  Most of the learners said they had achieved their aims on the course.  The learner who did not stated that she had “achieved all aims but not work experience.”  All the learners stated that the course had given them a great deal of information and that the support given by the project team had increased their confidence about their future and gaining employment.
• Learners understand working conditions in Scotland (e.g. that they would still be paid if bad weather, they are protected by health and safety, would receive sick pay etc).
• Learners are better off - one of the learners discovered that child benefit had not been paid and this has been reinstated and additional child benefit for a child in full time education has been given.
• Strengthened partnership working in Dundee - evaluated and evidenced by strong working relationships.
• The programme is being rolled out across the city for refugee and other ESOL learners.

At the time of writing, since completing the course:

• 3 learners have been supported into work placements
• 1 more learner will start a work placement soon
• 1 learner has had a job trial and has been promised a full-time job at the end of a training period
• 1 learner has gained part-time employment
• 1 learner has been offered full-time employment
• 2 learners have applied for college and are looking to start a business
• All learners continue to attend ESOL provision provided by Dundee City Council, although they need less formal sessions as their English language skills improve rapidly through employment and increased engagement with their local and work community. This lets us focus ESOL on more new learners
• We have been promised positions with a hotel for people completing the course

Better outcomes will ultimately be measured by how many gain meaningful employment or training, but learners have already told us that they have gained a lot of knowledge and information and are more confident and positive about the future.  A graduation celebration was held for friends, family and professionals working with the learners.  Other colleagues from across Dundee City Council and COSLA also attended to find out about the programme.  All the learners made speeches describing their experiences of the programme - below are just a few extracts:

How is the approach being sustained?

The feedback from learners, their families, partners and senior managers at the graduation event was overwhelmingly positive and, through COSLA, this project is receiving interest nationally.

A second course is currently being run for refugee learners from across the city, enhanced by learning from the first programme:

• We have involved all partners (including Wise Group, Project Scotland and the Community Benefits Officer) from the beginning of the project and worked more closely together with them to plan opportunities for the learners. They were involved in the pre-course registrations so they had a picture of learners' skills and aspirations early on, helping them to better source placements.
• In course 2, all learners have started volunteering one day a week from week 4, meeting with a volunteer mentor from Project Scotland each week. Specific sessions on the claimant commitment, their responsibilities as regards their benefits, and health and safety at work have been included.
• On completion of course 1, participants started attending a “Mindset training” once a week, delivered in Arabic specifically for them.  We felt this was so beneficial that we have now included it as part of course 2. We have also introduced the SQA's Core Skills ICT award at SCQF 3 to the programme. All our group 2 learners have completed the assessment and are awaiting certification. We hope to gradually increase our core skills offer, embedding the awards in the training.
• We have arranged site visits to allow learners who wish to move into construction an understanding of the environment and health and safety in Scotland. We are also working with partners to plan a bespoke CSCS course for our refugee learners (with Arabic language support).
• We have also planned a session on setting up your own business  - pulling in additional partners to support this.
• We feel that job brokerage is key as refugees do not have the networks to gain employment or confidence or understanding to apply for jobs. Having identified that there was an underspend in Dundee's ESF allocation and one of our targets was to work with the BME community, we are applying for ESF funding for an additional 12 hour post to do this, as well as a dedicated full-time refugee Employability officer, funded by Home Office funding and ESF.
• We have identified that specialist adult guidance is required and we are exploring, with adult learning colleagues, ways of providing this and at what point would it be most helpful.
• Whilst our entry and exit assessments help us to measure outcomes, we are seeking to improve this and are keen to look at the long term impact of our ESOL and employability work using different evaluative tools. We have devised additional materials for a pre-course and exit evaluation, and want to use narrative enquiry with participants to evaluate the long term impact of the course. Participants will be interviewed (in Arabic or English) three months after completing the course to find out what difference it made to them. We intend to revisit them after a year to find out if they are employed and if they feel the course and ongoing support made a difference. We have created an online spreadsheet which is accessible to all partners, across statutory and third sector, allowing us to share information about progess and impact.

Participants in both courses have been mixed ability with mixed education and experiences of learning. Some are farmers who had minimal primary education and literacy needs in their own language, whilst some are highly educated and have been to university. Obviously this poses challenges, but all are employable, want to work and have skills which are needed in Dundee. Subsequently, we have used our ESOL volunteers to provide additional support to learners with literacy needs in class. Volunteers have come early and provided additional assistance in breaks to ensure that all learners are supported and achieving.

We have also pulled in support from the Council's IT For Work service to ensure that learners have the IT skills to look for work and manage benefits in light of welfare reform. IT For Work deliver one session per week as part of the course and have set up 3 IT groups outwith - to upskill those on the programme, those who have already graduated and those who are coming onto the programme. Our third sector partner provides Arabic language support and now students are volunteering and supporting new groups

The success of this project won't just benefit the learners. Dundee's economy needs people with the skills and abilities they will bring to the jobs market and as they move into jobs or create businesses they will play their part in achieving the city's strategic aim to develop a strong, sustainable and productive local economy.

Lessons learned

What we've learned from the first programme and are happy to share with others is:

• We need to emphasise that we will get learners ready for work at the information session, but we cannot guarantee employment.
• The cultures and processes around seeking employment in Syria are very different to the UK and these need to be explained carefully.
• Participants were unaware of the terms of their benefits and about the claimant commitment, they also had a lack of knowledge of tax and national insurance and concerns about health and safety and employment protections in the UK.  They were also unaware of the terms of their refugee status in the UK.
• The Making Money Work team were key to the success of this project.  They did not meet with learners until Week 4; it would be good to have them in at the beginning.
• Work placements need to be planned more carefully, with more involvement from our Project Scotland and Wise Group partners from the beginning, to ensure a seamless transition from the course onto work placements.
• Project Scotland have offered more involvement and volunteer work coaches to support the learners.
• Learners requested more interview practice so we are exploring ways to do this more formally.

Staff from other local authorities (Aberdeenshire, Highland, Dumfries and Galloway) have, via the Knowledge Hub, requested to see our materials. We have also been asked to explore how we can adapt our model to use with other learners affected by mental health and substance misuse issues. We have shared our practice at a recent conference on Welfare Reform for people from across Dundee, and our work has been recognised by Dundee City Council, winning an Outstanding Service and Commitment Award for Improving Services Through Partnership Working as part of the wider Humanitarian project to assist refugees, and a COSLA Gold Award.

For further information on this case study, please contact

Kirsty Forrester

kirsty.forrester@dundeecity.gov.uk
01382 435818).