Thriving at Work Training – FAA Award in Awareness of First Aid for Mental Health

Why Voice is Important

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.  

Thriving at Work Training – FAA Award in Awareness of First Aid for Mental Health

Mental Health news item Thriving at Work Wellbeing Resources



  Thriving at Work is an innovative project that offers employers and employees a range of support  – helping to make workplaces more inclusive and supporting. This is a one day course to be held on the 22nd October 2021 and is available individuals that wish to improve their knowledge of mental health in the

Cleaning Up The Beach

Action Towards Inclusion



  Laughter, waves, singing, birds… Just some of the sounds of a Scarborough beach clean. The Opportunity Centre (previously Aspire Igen) is a Yorkshire based social enterprise committed to changing lives for the better through learning and work. On ATI, they work across Scarborough, York and Ryedale to support lone parents. They give them 1-1

Thriving at Work – Lisa’s Story

Thriving at Work



  “I have had many dark days through depression and my anxiety has at times been so debilitating. Ricky has given me the tools to control my emotions and not let my mental health control me but learn to live with it….”   It was great to receive a recent case study from Working For

Connecting with the Outside – St Nick’s

Thriving at Work



Thriving at Work aims to support more people to thrive at work. It has a particular focus on supporting inclusive workplaces that can unlock the potential of staff who are neurodiverse, disabled or experience mental health challenges. We recently met up with Esther from St Nicks  – who talked about their exciting offer as part

Inclusive and Active Citizens

ESF Community Grants



  Our latest video case study features Jake and the LGBT+ Forum in York.  They have recently been an ESF Community Grants delivery partner – offering confidence building courses sand support in CV writing and interview techniques to unemployed people in North Yorkshire. Jake describes the overall work of the forum as “…wanting to help

Carrie’s Story

Action Towards Inclusion



 Carrie is a recent participant on Action Towards Inclusion – a dynamic programme across York, North Yorkshire and the East Riding supporting people into work, training and volunteering. Carrie faced a number of challenges but has made fantastic progress through taking part in the programme. Action Towards Inclusion is funded by the European Social

New Staff at Better Connect

Blog Careers news item



Did you know when you hit 17 zoom boxes on zoom the image quality drops? Well, we found that out over the past few weeks as our lovely staff team has recently grown! It has been such an exciting time for new staff members to join us at Better Connect! We are very excited to

Introducing Better Connect

Blog news item



  This is our first video for our new channel  – Better Connect. It features our Chief Officer  – Sam Alexander – and gives a brief welcome and  outlines some of the exciting changes Transcript of video: Introducing Better Connect   Hi, I’m Sam Alexander and as the CEO of Better Connect, it’s my great pleasure to tell

Kickstart Introduction

Kickstart



This short introduction video features Hannah talking about the Better Connect Kickstart project

Katie and Lynda Kickstart

Kickstart



“I love every second of being in this job and I tell people every single day.” This short video features Katie – a new Kickstart staff member working for Pioneer Projects in North Yorkshire.

Working Hands Helping Communities

ESF Community Grants



This video features the work of Claro Enterprise in Starbeck who have been working with partners Veterans’ Woodcraft to deliver basic skills courses funded by the ESF Community Grants Fund. ESF Community Grants are part of the European Social Fund (ESF) programme and the aim of the fund is to help unemployed people progress towards

Making Moves, The Opportunity Centre, Scarborough

Action Towards Inclusion



Making Moves features the work of Jeni Golder and the Opportunity Centre in Scarborough. Action Towards Inclusion participants have been benefiting from yoga outside – helping build confidence.