Working hard to successfully change peoples' lives for the better

Devon has been hit extremely hard by the economic effect of Covid as quite a bit of our income as a county comes from tourism and leisure.

Many people who worked hard in the summer running and working in hotels, B&Bs, restaurants and other tourist-related activities saw their prime period of income reduced or their jobs lost.

On top of this, Covid has hit many small independent retailers, we have also had sizeable organisations such as Flybe going into administration along with several other large employers within our area, especially in the retail sector.

The Government considered Devon to be one of the worst hit areas of the country.

So, things looked pretty bleak for many who were made redundant or placed on furlough not knowing if they were ever going to return to work as companies struggled to survive.

Ten months on, things are still looking pretty bleak for many members of our Devon community.

We run a firm called Motiv-8sw which is designed to help people who have fallen on hard times for whatever reason.

We employ some fantastic coaches who give their all to work alongside these people, with the aim of getting them back into work and they are very successful in doing so.

We do it by allowing individuals to restore their self-confidence and esteem, understand themselves better and discover strengths that can be utilised in the workplace.

Some are recently redundant, long-term unemployed, perhaps recovering from addiction.

Some are ex-offenders who are returning to the workplace and wanting to shift the stigma of their past and become respected members of society.

Some have simply given up on finding a job because their applications have been turned down so many times.

Some have disabilities that they believe prevent them from working and some have social issues from their backgrounds that have removed any feeling of self-worth.

The programme we run is designed to enable an individual to recognise their worth to the local community and let’s face it, whatever our background, we are all good at something and we all like something.

We work on the principle that every individual matters, because we firmly believe that every individual can become a useful member of society.

Once we have restored an individual’s self-esteem we begin to identify what they are passionate about and then we look at how we can use that passion in a job.

Having identified a suitable job or role, we then create a credible and realistic plan of acquiring such a role.

We prepare them in terms of their CV and we prepare them in terms of interview techniques before allowing them to practice their learning and become confident in their ability to sell themselves.

We are running programmes with the Department of Work and Pensions, with local authorities and with local charities.

Currently we are working in Devon but also in many other counties across the UK.

In Torbay the programme - called Ready to Work - is funded by Torbay Council and commissioned by TDA. It has placed around 20 people back into work.

Motiv-8 SW's Ready for Work Torbay logo (Image: Archant)

One particularly successful programme is based in Torbay where we have dedicated coaches and team of support staff working extremely hard to successfully change peoples’ lives for the better.

The advantages and benefits of these programmes to the region is immense.

Especially when you factor in the financial costs, social and community benefits that are gained compared to not doing anything to help these individuals.

I am so proud to be involved in a business that focuses on the development of others, especially people that could well be living next door to anyone of us.

So, if you know of anyone who is struggling to find work for whatever reason do point them in our direction at www.motiv-8sw.com as we may well be able to help them or at least guide them in the right direction.

Sandra Sampson from Motiv-8 SW (Image: Archant)