Sixteen is delighted to be starting a new programme in South Gloucestershire called Working Knowledge! This is for people with learning disabilities who want to find out more about the world of work and how their life might change if they got a job.

It's all about being ready for the big day when you start work, covers things like meeting employers and how to work out payslips, pensions and holidays.

For more information, please contact [email protected] 

​Delighted to have nabbed second place in the national Team of the Year award run by the British Association of Supported Employment 2018.

Fitting recognition of the teams’ hard work, enthusiasm and dedication to developing more and better job for people with learning disabilities or other disadvantage in the workplace.

Thanks to Sharon for collecting at the BASE conference

Sixteen is delighted to announce the launch of a new project designed to help people with a learning disability in South Gloucestershire explore self-employment and small business ownership. 

Enterprising People will offer workshops and seminars on self-employment for people with a learning disability as well as their support team. Individuals will get one-to-one and network support to explore their business idea and to plan how to make it a reality.

Our specialist Enterprise Facilitator will work with individuals and their networks to consider using their individual strengths and interests to create alternative routes to work and to establish viable enterprises with sustainable support.

We are now looking for people interested in joining this exciting new project. Participants will get access to business training and support and one to one mentoring support from our enterprise facilitator

Look out for our Self Employment Seminar on 18th September 2018
For more information contact Alice White on 07936 037 123 or [email protected]

We are delighted to report that Lucy Shaw, has been given an Employment, Skills and Learning Award at an event held by Bristol City Council.

Lucy, a graduate from the Bristol Supported Internship Programmes in 2017, was the first person in that programme to be offered a job. She started work at the Holiday Inn as a Food and Beverage assistant.

Before Lucy had started the internship, her family were concerned that she would never find her place in the world and she would never be committed to working. However, as soon as she started work, this changed. Lucy was very committed, getting up at 5.30am to catch the bus to work in all weathers. Lucy has mild learning difficulties and finds it hard to learn complicated tasks. However, with the help of a job coach from Sixteen, Lucy was soon flying.

One year on, she is working 30+ hours per week and really enjoying it. Recently her manager asked her to cover the supervisor’s position at breakfast. Lucy did so well that the manger is now looking to train Lucy as a supervisor. Her manager says that she is really reliable and ‘is better than the rest of my staff.’ This is an excellent example that with motivation and the right support amazing results can be achieved.

Well done Lucy!

We are very excited that one of the very first Project Search interns with the Project Search programme based at Bristol City Council, has now become a mentor to one of the current Project Search interns.

Kristian Hedges started Project Search in 2012 and, as one of the first 7 interns on the programme in Bristol, undertook placements in the Health and Social Care, Meals Service and Schools Admissions departments in the City Council. Supported internships are an ideal way to develop employment skills whilst undertaking a number of supported work placements matched closely to the skills and interests of the individual. Project SEARCH in Bristol brings together a partnership between Bristol City Council, Sixteen Co-operative Ltd and City of Bristol College.

Although most people go straight into paid employment from an internship, Kristian, with support from his Job Coach, went on to complete an apprenticeship in the Benefits, Admin and Business Support finance team at the Council before securing a full time paid role.  He has now been working there for over 3 years.

Kristian’s suggestion to his Manager Julia that he was interested in becoming a mentor, helped to secure a placement in his team for Jade, one of the newest Project Search interns. Jade was really keen to work in an office and gain experience working in an admin role. Kristian helped Jade to settle quickly and become a valued member of the team by explaining things clearly and happily answering questions. She has received positive feedback from both Kristian and her Manager, who commented on what a great help she had been.

Sixteen currently supports four different support Internship Programmes in Bristol so if you are interested in offering a work experience placement to one of our interns or would like to know more about becoming a mentor, please get in touch.

Kristian is very clear that his own experience of Project Search has helped enormously in his role as mentor as he knows what it feels like to be just starting out on work placements. We hope that Jade’s future will be as rewarding at Kristian’s!

We’d like to say huge congratulations to one of our Project SEARCH participants, who has just started an apprenticeship with Bristol City Council!

Sophie is going to be working as a Business Administration Apprentice within the Performance and Customer Engagement team of the Council’s Citizen Services Department.

The role will be many and varied and will include tasks like maintaining and updating databases, ordering goods, generating invoices, and arranging meetings.

Although Sophie had tried a number of different positions as part of her internship programme, including Childcare and Hospitality, it was really a placement at the ABS Planning and Building Regulations team at BCC that  highlighted her brilliant organisation skills, focus and hardworking attitude and helped her decide that administration is a role that really suited.

We are really looking forward to continuing to work with Sophie as she settles in to her new role and getting the opportunity to see her flourish.

Job outcome data for 2016-17 show that Sixteen Co-operative exceeded its goal of supporting 75% of our job seekers into positions of 16 hours per week or over. We are delighted by the news that 80% of our jobs were 16 hours plus. 

This shows, once again, the importance of using evidence based supported employment approaches.