Employability & Life Skills for Lone Parents

The Employ ULV project 'Life Skills and Employability Support for Lone Parents' is being run by a partnership led by Enfield College. The project runs to 31st March 2007 and works with lone parents across the ULV.

For details on referrals or any other information please contact Andrew Ramsay at Enfield College on 020 8443 3434, extension 6570 or via email.

 Case studies

Partner Information

Enfield Council is working with the Lone Parents Project to act as a Job Broker for local unemployed residents. Over the next 5 months the Council will be contacting 1,000 local businesses to link Employ ULV beneficiaries to job vacancies. Details of job vacancies will be shared, not only with the Lone Parents Project Consortium, but also with the lead partners in the BME, Disability and Refugee projects for forwarding to their partners.

Matching the Network?s job seekers with vacancies will have a number of benefits for employers;

• No costly advertising for recruitment
• Pre-screening of candidates (ensuring suitability for interview)
• Matching local people to local jobs (which diminishes absenteeism)
• Fast efficient service
• Where an employer has a large number of vacancies, free use of resources to hold ?employer days?

If you are an employer, from anywhere in North London, and have a suitable vacancy, please contact Tony Wallis (Enfield Council) on 020 8379 3090 or via email.

Opportunity Links, another partner in the Consortium, have developed a useful software package. ?Estimator? enables parents and employers to negotiate a route through the complex tax and National Insurance system, with its potentially confusing elements of:

• Working Tax Credit
• Child Tax Benefit
• Childcare Vouchers
• Tax Breaks

The Estimator allows parents and employers to clearly see the options available to them and to choose one that will not result in financial disadvantage. It also supports employers? HR function, negating the need for time-consuming and complex calculations or a need to fully understand these entitlements ? the Estimator does it all. Easy to use, this system is backed up with Opportunity Links? comprehensive IT support. 

Opportunity Links is offering the Estimator (usually £75 - £200 per year) completely free of charge to 23 companies within the Upper Lee Valley, for a period of one year. Unfortunately, this offer is limited to employers with less than 250 employees. If you would like to take advantage of this free offer for your organisation, or would like further information, please e-mail Caroline Fanning or call 020-8373 2690.

You are under no obligation to continue using the Estimator after your free year, but Opportunity Links are certain that you?ll see the benefits of the system as soon as you start to use it.

Further information on the Estimator (including a demo) can be found on the Opportunity Links website. Please note that the Estimator will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis.

New Partners and New Opportunities

Women Like Us, a new partner to the Lone Parent consortium, is a rapidly expanding service that helps women with children to find local, part-time, and flexible work in North and Central London. They do this by going out to women in their daily environment where they naturally network, and where thousands of women across the country are talking about how to get back to work: the school gates. They?re currently building a network of Women Like Us ?reps? across schools in North and Central London. These reps promote the service to other parents in their children?s primary school. The list of schools, and any other information, can be found on the Women Like Us website. Alternatively, please call them on 020-7281 6522

All other enquiries about this job brokerage should be directed to Andrew Ramsay (Enfield College) on 020 8443 3434 extension 6570 or via email.