News
One of the 3 strategic goals of Better Connect is to Inspire Change. This involves promoting social inclusion as an essential part of creating vibrant, productive and prosperous communities.
We aim to inspire change in 3 ways:
- Sharing participants stories – Through our projects, our partners have supported thousands of participants. We know that behind these big numbers, each person has their own individual story of how they have been supported to transform their lives. We are delighted that some of these people have chosen to share their stories with us. And now, we get to share those stories with you.
- Thinkpieces and blogs – Our staff and partners have a huge amount of knowledge on lots of issues regarding inclusion, diversity, wellbeing and employment. Some of this comes from their work and education and much of it comes from lived experience. We create and share blogs and thinkpieces written by our staff and partners to raise awareness and contribute positively to the conversation about these key issues.
- Representation – We are honoured to represent social inclusion issues and the voluntary and community sector in multiagency groups and policy formation. We do this by listening to our partners and participants and using our platforms to amplify their voices and perspectives. We connect policy makers with people on the ground to ensure that policies and funding have the greatest positive impact in communities.
“It’s easy to get into debt – but hard to get out” – Multiply Participant Stories
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A few weeks back, we had the pleasure of visiting Multiply keyworker CJ Allison and his participants Dan and David as they battled through some budgets, talked financial self-advocacy, and discussed self-employment tips and tricks. Multiply is the government’s new multi-million-pound programme to help transform the lives of hundreds of thousands of adults across
Celebrating International Youth Day!
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RISE
Saturday 12th August marks International Youth Day, and this year the theme is ‘Green Skills for Youth: Towards a Sustainable World’. The United Nations define green skills as, ‘’knowledge, abilities, values and attitudes needed to live in, develop and support a sustainable and resource-efficient society’’. The UN report that 40% of all jobs
New Role – Business Development Manager!
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We are excited to announce that Emma is our new Business Development Manager at Better Connect! She will be working closely with the senior leadership team to find new funding and partnership programme opportunities that support organisations and people to thrive in their life and work. She will be working closely with existing and potential
Meet Team Impact!
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Meet the Team
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We are excited to announce that we have a new Impact Team at Better Connect! Hannah and Laura will be responsible for understanding, demonstrating and showcasing the impact that Better Connect is having across its business, programmes and partnerships. Working closely with colleagues, partners, participants and stakeholders, they will be gathering information in a
A Successful RISE Programme Launch
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RISE
On Tuesday 18th July, we officially launched RISE– our latest project, with the help of our fantastic partnership and The Marketing Optimist. Hosted at The Balcony Sports Bar in Harrogate, the RISE Partnership came together for the first time to celebrate the launch, share successes, and collaborate on a peer support tool to keep
ATI Participant Stories – Ray
Action Towards Inclusion
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In honour of Mental Health Awareness week last month, we’re back with another participant story featuring Ray, Orb, a Dancing for Wellbeing class, and a Coordinator with two left feet. Ray joined Action Towards Inclusion (ATI) at the end of October 2021. I had the opportunity to meet with him several weeks ago to attend
Planting dreams, aspirations and hopes from the Action Towards Inclusion Programme
Action Towards Inclusion
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Following the project’s end on 31st March this year, it’s finally time to say goodbye to Action Towards Inclusion, celebrate six successful years, and make good on our green-fingered promises here at Better Connect. Throughout ATI, our partnership has supported those furthest from the labour market traverse a range of barriers to employment and
ATI Participant Stories – Meet Harry
Action Towards Inclusion
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Laura works as the Participant Experience Coordinator on our Action Towards Inclusion Programme. She often reads and hears stories from the participants who access the support and has decided to share some of those in a blog series called ‘ATI Participant Stories’.. Today we hear Harry’s story! Harry has been on Action Towards Inclusion
Multiply – Celebrating Year One!
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On Friday 31st March we held an event at Priory Street in York to celebrate our first year of Multiply! You may be thinking.. but you’ve just launched this programme? Well our amazing partnership had only 3 months to deliver on their targets from the date we received the funding in December and we
Multiply – Joe’s top 3 money saving tips
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As part of Multiply, our team will be sharing some top tips around finance, household bills, budgeting and numeracy.. this time we hear from Joe with his top 3 money saving tips! I’ve felt extremely lucky during the cost of living crisis. Although some of my costs have certainly gone up, I’ve not been hit
ATI Participant Stories – Meet Lucy
Action Towards Inclusion
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This week, in celebration of International Women’s Day and the wonderful women on Action Towards Inclusion (ATI), we’re back with another participant story featuring the lovely Lucy, keyworker Gemma from Orb, and a Sun- Power yoga class. Having joined ATI in May 2022, Lucy has been attending a number of Orb interventions in view of
“To me, humility does not mean thinking less of yourself but means thinking of yourself less” – Sybille’s Story
Action Towards Inclusion
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Meet the Team
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Wednesday 8th March is International Women’s Day, today we hear Sybille’s story about moving from the NHS to finding at home at Better Connect. Syb is one of the most caring people and a key member within the team and it is a honour to share her story today.. From being