You may have seen back in October 2020, Baltic Creative embarked on an exciting partnership with Transform Lives Company (TLC) to support creative and digital businesses who are looking to generate new job opportunities for unemployed young people through the government’s Kickstart Scheme.
Over the last three months, we’ve hosted virtual monthly meet-ups and connected our businesses and wider network with TLC, in order for organisations to find out more about the scheme and how to access the support available.
TLC are experts in running employment and wellbeing programmes and submitted its first bid to the Department for Work and Pensions in January 2021, consisting of 48 new jobs from 23 businesses in total – four of which are Baltic Creative tenants. Acting as a gateway to the scheme, TLC access the government funding on behalf of the applicant business.
Throughout the process, TLC also provide additional support to the applicant businesses and young people involved in the scheme, such as recruitment assistance, employability and wellbeing support, onward job search opportunities and careers advice coaching.
Mark Lawler, Managing Director of Baltic Creative CIC said:
“We’re delighted to say that even during these challenging times, there has been significant interest and uptake in the Kickstart scheme through our partnership with TLC. The jobs that have been submitted are varied and we’re particularly excited to see that opportunities in creative and digital such as admin, social media, graphic design, animation and illustration, will be amongst those available to young people.”
Tracy Fishwick OBE, Managing Director at Transform Lives Company said:
“Working with the team at Baltic Creative has meant we’ve been able to meet businesses we’d never normally meet, it’s been inspiring to meet so many diverse and successful businesses and the ideas they have to create jobs for young people. We’d hoped for 30 jobs to begin with, so 48 exceeded our expectations! Now we’re an approved Gateway, we can simply keep adding more jobs any time, up until December 2021. We’re soon to arrange a ‘meet the employer’ session with potential candidates for the first round of jobs – That’s when it will feel real and I still get a buzz every time we help someone make a start on a new and exciting career. This is a tough time for a lot of young people and we’re determined to play our part.”
Baltic Creative and TLC have scheduled four future Kickstart meet-ups for 2021. So, if you’re a business looking for someone to fill a new role at your organisation, or you would benefit from funding support to cover the wage of this role, then please join us for a brew via Zoom to find out more. Alternatively, you can email the team at TLC directly at [email protected].
You can sign up to our monthly meet-ups via Eventbrite
