Birmingham Forward launches Mentoring Programme for unemployed professionals
The recession has hit the professional and financial services sector hard. Redundancies are occurring in every sector.
One of the most stressful elements facing those who lose their jobs is maintaining their connection and engagement with colleagues and to be able to keep connected to the specific sector of business in which they worked.
As part of Birmingham Forward’s commitment to supporting colleagues who are facing the challenge of finding new employment opportunities, the organisation has teamed up with Job Centre Plus to pilot a new mentoring scheme aimed specifically at unemployed professionals.
The pilot was launched following a workshop to test the idea, run by Birmingham Forward Director Dr Andrew Bass, who also runs consultancy Bass Clusker, and Kathryn Gallen of 2nd City Recruitment who is a member of the Birmingham Future Mentoring Committee. 21 unemployed professionals attended the workshop and as a direct result 11 have signed up to take part in the pilot.
The mentoring scheme will run initially for a three month period and will see a long-term unemployed professional teamed up with a professional from Birmingham Forward or Future. The key aim is to advise and support the mentee as they prepare to find new employment opportunities. Mentors will guarantee to contact their mentee every week to offer counsel and assistance.
Birmingham Forward is using the award winning Birmingham Future mentoring scheme, which has been highly regarded as the template for this pilot.
If the programme proves to be both well received and successful then a roll out across the region is likely to follow.
Commenting on the launch, Birmingham Forward Chief Executive Richard Brennan said;
“We are pleased to launch this pilot with our colleagues at Job Centre Plus. We know from the discussions at our workshop that regular engagement with fellow professionals is an important aspect to the process of coping with redundancy and the subsequent challenge of finding new employment. This programme will allocate a mentor to each unemployed mentee so that they have someone they can regularly talk to and who can advise and support them confidentially.
“Since the recession began to hit the professional and financial services sector hard, Birmingham Forward has been striving to find effective ways of supporting colleagues and firms within the sector we represent. This is a very practical example of that objective.”
FURTHER INFORMATION FROM: Urban Communications on 0121 237 6016 or email tim@urbancomms.com
Date: 21th July 2009.
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