ERSA Employability Awards - We Won!

The winners of the ERSA Employability Awards 2016, sponsored by APM, were announced last night at an evening ceremony attended by the new Minister for Disabled People, Work and Health, Penny Mordaunt MP, and hosted by ITV news presenter Lucrezia Millarini. 

The ERSA Employability Awards are now in their fourth year. The awards showcase and champion best practice from across the employment support sector, celebrating and recognising the hard work and achievements of those involved in supporting people into work from advisors working one to one with a jobseeker to overcome their barriers to employment; to employers who look beyond traditional barriers, such as a criminal record; to the jobseeker themselves moving into employment. 

This year the awards were judged by Nick Butler, Policy Lead for the Work and Health Programme at the Department for Work and Pensions; Andy Cook, Programmes Director at the Centre for Social Justice; and Christine Chang, Senior Director, Investments at Big Society Capital. The ceremony night included a reception sponsored by PeoplePlus.

ERSA is delighted to announce the following winners of the 2016 award:

Partner of the Year – sponsored by ICONI: Recognising excellence as a delivery partner in the field of employment support.

Joint winner: Open doors nominated by Capability Scotland is a consortium of providers of employability services for people with disabilities and long-term conditions who recognised that they were consistently competing against one another. ENABLE Scotland; the Royal National Institute of Blind People Scotland (RNIB Scotland); Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH); Action on Hearing Loss Scotland; Capability Scotland and the Lennox Partnership created Open Doors to combine their skills to support both customers and commissioners.

Joint winner: Inspire to Independence nominated by Serco Welfare to Work is a Work Programme subcontractor to Serco in Coventry, Staffordshire and Stoke. i2i’s work with ESA customers is often described as ‘trailblazing’ thanks to their creative deployment of resources to better support customers with complex health needs to move into sustainable employment.