Job coaching into the open labour market

The Dual Facing Work Advisors project, led by Prospectus, Connection at St Martins, and St Mungo’s aimed to support homeless individuals into sustainable employment, by linking the work of homelessness agencies with the commercial focus of recruitment consultants.

The Delivery Model

Job coaches worked with homeless people who aspired to work, but faced barriers in accessing work, to produce an employment based action plan. This action plan was followed until the job coach believed the service user was ready for referral to a commercial employment agency.

Following an assessment with the employment agency, the homeless individual either became a candidate, or was referred back to the job coach for further development. If the individual was successful, the commercial employment agency worked with them to find a suitable role, or cross-referred to another commercial employment agency. Ongoing support was provided by the job coach.

By the end of December 2007, 21 ‘job-ready’ participants gained employment via the commercial agency.

“It was refreshing to work with a ‘real’ recruitment agency’ as opposed to working with only a support worker” - Dual Facing Work participant

Toolkit and Good Practice

The commercial recruitment agency, Prospectus, has produced a ‘job-readiness assessment’ toolkit to assist job coaches and employment advisors working with clients who are faced with multiple labour market disadvantages in the assessment of an individual’s employability.

Download the Job-readiness Toolkit (377 Kb).

The appendices to the job-readiness toolkit provide useful pro-formas for several stages of the process. They can be downloaded here as Word documents:

Appendix 1: Sample CV (627 Kb)
Appendix 2: Sample reference request form (630 Kb)
Appendix 3: Sample client pre-interview form (778 Kb)
Appendix 4: Post Interview Report Template (649 Kb)
Appendix 5: Sample Complete Client Checklist (656 Kb)
Appendix 6: Sample Candidate Assessment Form (640 Kb)