News

It’s Employability Day and here in the Employment and Recovery Services at Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, we’re taking this opportunity to celebrate our staff and recognise the incredible impact our teams have every day!

This week (1-7th June) is Volunteer’s Week! A time to celebrate the contribution so many people make through volunteering. To kick off the week, the Employment and Recovery Services spoke to Ruby, a colleague who joined us and made a huge impact through volunteering.

Hi Ruby, introduce yourself!

“My name’s Ruby, and I am a Loneliness Vocational support worker on the Lets Talk Service.”

 Tell me about your journey with Let’s Talk

 “I started off in the Let’s Talk team as a volunteer late last year. I had just finished my degree in Psychology, and had completed my dissertation around loneliness during the Covid-19 Pandemic. It opened my eyes to the amount of people experiencing loneliness, of all ages, and the impact it was having on existing mental health problems and some individuals were experiencing poor mental health for the first time. I saw the job role for ‘Loneliness Vocational Specialist’ advertised and emailed in to see if there was any voluntary roles available within the team, as I wanted to try and help with tackling this loneliness epidemic.”

Last week, the Employment & Recovery Services marked Mental Health Awareness Week (9^th – 15^th May 2022) alongside many of our Trust colleagues, out in our communities.

With this year’s theme of Loneliness, the week kicked off with a Community Inclusion event, connecting colleagues from services across the Black Country, and presenting some of the great resources we have to offer in combatting loneliness and isolation through our Let’s Talk project.

A three-day event at the Mander Centre in Wolverhampton brought together our IPS, Retention, Thrive into Work, Let’s Talk and BBO colleagues from Employment & Recovery Services – sharing information about our services and learning from the many providers there.

The CRF 50+ Project is aimed at economically inactive, unemployed and employed individuals age 50 plus in the Walsall area. Supporting individuals to navigate through information, advice and guidance on healthy lifestyles, employment and training opportunities, offering bespoke support based on the needs of the individual.

Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has launched a brand new website dedicated to supporting people to find and retain employment across the Black Country and beyond. The Black Country Job Support site showcases the wide range of services offered by the Trust’s employment service for people with mental and physical health conditions, which is often not recognised as many people associate the NHS with healthcare alone.