St Giles East of England Team Win Award For Career Progression Project

In November 2024, St Giles’ East of England team were delighted to win the Community Award for their work in supporting people into careers in Health and Social Care via the Apollo Project at a ceremony in Norfolk. 

Funded by NHS England and launched a year ago, the project is a collaboration of 7 colleges and more than 450 employers across Norfolk and Suffolk. They are working together to recruit and retain people in this area of work. 

As part of the project, 21 voluntary organisations have been commissioned to contribute by delivering small projects to contribute towards its aims. 

The Apollo project shows the power of working together. In its first year the organisations involved engaged over 2600 individuals, supported over 1100 work experience placements and helped more than 250 people into employment. 

St Giles’s contribution involved bringing together two of its key services in Norfolk, Wonder+ and the Peer Hub by providing opportunities for 10 women. 

Wonder+ works with women who are on the edge of the criminal justice system and have multiple complex needs. The team works with them holistically to address the challenges they are facing and help them create safety, stability and move toward a more positive future. (You can read more about Wonder+ here) 

The Peer Hub offers a structured programme of training and supported work placements for people who have overcome adversity. 

The 10 women received trauma-informed training that covered topics designed to give them the skills and knowledge needed to give information, advice and guidance to their peers. They also had access to an insightful Q&A session with a Senior Wonder+ Caseworker and The Pantry Team (more about The Pantry here) to give them a good understanding of working within Health and Social Care projects in a Support Worker context. 

During this support, all the women were given the opportunity to apply for a position within the Wonder+ Service or encouraged and supported to look elsewhere, as part of a package of 1:1 sessions, around next steps in their education, volunteering or career journey. 

So far: 

• 4 are now actively seeking volunteering opportunities 
• 1 has secured a volunteering opportunity with St Giles Wonder+ service 
• 1 has enrolled on a counselling course 
• 2 are actively seeking employment in support roles 

As well as these outcomes, the team are pleased to say it has helped them increase capacity to support even more women across Norfolk by helping create volunteer placements. 

Regional Development Manager for the East of England, Carly Mason said:

“It was a real honour to receive this Community Award at what was an inspiring evening. The overriding message was that the Health and Social Care system is not broken, but it certainly has challenges, with recruitment and retention being a key one. Working together to address this locally can, as Apollo is showing, going a long way to producing a thriving Health and Social Care sector in which people are proud to work.”

---

Connect with St Giles via:  

Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn 
X (formerly known as Twitter)
National newsletter sign-up
East of England newsletter sign-up
See More About our East Of England work