Why your next employee in Yorkshire should be a refugee: Alex Howley

These barriers can prevent them from being able to settle and build a new life as well as depriving the community of their skills and talents.

Just last week I was asked to have a conversation with two of my new neighbours from Ukraine about their next steps in the UK’s further education system, having completed their GCSEs and wanting to study further.

Community organisations and social enterprises, like my employer The Growth Company, have a role to play in breaking down roadblocks and preparing people for regular life and work in England.

The Growth Company has done incredible work for individuals and families from Ukraine across the North through our United for Ukraine initiative, which has helped showcase job opportunities and additional support to Ukrainian nationals coming to the UK.

We were recently awarded a contract to deliver the Home Office Refugee Employability Programme in Yorkshire and the Humber.

We now have the chance to expand on the work we’ve done with United for Ukraine to make a real difference to people from places like Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan and Eritrea, which have been devastated by upheaval.

There will be three pillars to our work. Firstly, we will look employability and employment opportunities helping people with the kinds of activities that we do on a number of our programmes.

Secondly, we will be providing additional English language tuition to help people progress and to learn work-related English that directly helps them to get a job.

And thirdly, we will be focused on integration into local communities. We will utilise the skills of 30 key workers across Yorkshire and the Humber who will be laser-focused on linking participants into local activities, while also helping them to understand the education system, and how to access doctors and dentists.

Overall, our main objective is to help people to integrate and become more self-sufficient, more quickly, accelerating progress so that people can feel empowered to move forward with their own lives.

When talking to employers, we are finding that people that have fled to this country often have hidden talents and qualifications from overseas.

Sometimes, because of a language barrier or a misunderstanding, those underlying talents and skills are underutilised and people aren’t reaching their full potential.

Many of the people we will be working with have been through very difficult situations and traumatic situations, which is why we’re working to ensure that we support both the employee and employer to make that transition.

The Growth Company will have offices and hubs in major towns and cities across Yorkshire, in areas where there are higher proportions of refugees settling, such as Bradford, Leeds and Sheffield.

We’re already working with the likes of the University of Sheffield and railway operator Northern and they’ve seen some great results.

For purpose-driven organisations that are committed to social value and greater inclusion, we’re ready to work with you and help you to follow through on those commitments.

Alex Howley is Operations Director at The Growth Company