The 'Social' life is just non stop
14 February, 2012
City Health Care Partnership CIC (CHCP CIC) social business has been expanding at great rates in the last two years, and the most recent addition of apprenticeships for young people in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire is further commitment to supporting and developing the local community.
From March 2012, CHCP CIC will kick start the apprenticeship scheme with four people, as part of the 100 jobs scheme currently being run by Hull City Council targeting 16-19 year olds who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs).
The scheme, which will last for 12 months, will see the apprentices working in both admin and clinical roles developing skills and experience that are vital in today’s world of work. The end aim is to have the participants ready and able to start jobs in their chosen careers.
CHCP CIC have also worked collaboratively with Hull CVS and will offer four 10 week work experience programmes commencing in February 2012, these are in addition to the work experience places already offered through Jobcentre plus. The vision is to continue to offer a variety of employability schemes in partnership with the public, private and voluntary sectors.
Since becoming a fully formed Social Enterprise Community Interest Company (CIC) back in 2010, the organisation has been working with social ethos at the heart of the work it does. In addition to providing health services to roughly 500,000 people in the local area, CHCP CIC want to ensure that not only its staff and services benefit from any surpluses it makes, but also the local population and community and voluntary organisations.
As part of its commitment to the local community, CHCP CIC offers small grants of up to £1000 to support community and voluntary organisations in the area. Since its launch in December 2010, the scheme has awarded a total of £67,855 to 99 community and voluntary organisations in Hull and the East Riding.
The next 12 months is set to be just as ‘sociable’. Denise Anderton, Social Business and Public Relations Director talks about some of the upcoming developments, she said:
“The apprenticeship scheme is a fantastic way to help young people in our local area. We are excited to see where the scheme progresses over the next few years and keen to support local people. Our Social business is set to increase too with the introduction of seed funding and one-off charitable donations.”
“In addition, as an Employee Owned Company, we are going to match the amount of employee share money we currently hold, with the potential of quadrupling the amount. A panel will decide on three charities that will be taken to our AGM where all our staff shareholders will vote for their chosen charity to receive the funding. It’s all very exciting for us in developing and expanding upon our Social business”
Last year CHCP CIC published its first set of Social Accounts as a tool to measure the organisations performance as a Social Enterprise. The Social Accounts will be published annually to enable CHCP CIC to continually measure and review their environmental, economical and social impacts.
Last year’s Social Accounts can be found by clicking here
