OxLEP Skills is delighted to announce it will be launching its own mentoring scheme this National Mentoring Day (Thursday 27 October).
OxGrow – delivered as an online experience – is set to introduce experienced business volunteers to individuals looking for support to find a job or change career, to help them with areas such as developing resilience, CV writing and preparing for interviews.
National Mentoring Day takes place each year to recognise and celebrate the benefits of mentoring, with the new mentoring scheme forming part of OxLEP Skills’ Social Contract Programme, a £1.7m programme of activity aiming to remove barriers to employment for individuals impacted most by the pandemic or experiencing challenges to employment, education and training, including those over the age of 50 in Oxfordshire who may be affected by labour market challenges.
A core ambition of the programme is also to improve social mobility for minority ethnic communities in Oxfordshire.
Mentoring will take place via OxGrow, developed and hosted by mentoring software experts Connectr, which also gives mentees access to learning and development activities to complement the support given by mentors.
OxLEP Skills is inviting local businesspeople to join the new scheme as mentors – a rewarding social value opportunity to support others in their career journey – helping to prepare Oxfordshire’s residents in a tight labour market, to increase the talent pipeline for Oxfordshire employers whilst making new connections.
OxLEP Skills are holding a webinar on Thursday 27 October 2022 from 12noon – 12.45pm for anyone interested in finding out about the programme and what being a mentor involves, either for themselves or their employees.
Just a few weeks’ ago, OxLEP Skills announced that over £163,000 had been pledged through the ‘Grow Your Own’ levy initiative also forming part of the Social Contract programme, with businesses including the University of Oxford and Jacobs Douwe Egberts UK leading the way in transferring their levy through the programme.
Sally Andreou – Skills Hub Manager at OxLEP – said: “OxLEP Skills is delighted to introduce this new mentoring scheme as part of our exciting new Social Contract Programme. We are encouraging local businesspeople to take up the opportunity to share their knowledge and experience of recruitment success in order to help people move towards employment or change career.”
Ben Payne, Apprenticeships Manager at Oxfordshire County Council, has signed up to be a mentor, along with his whole team. Ben said: “The apprenticeship team here at Oxfordshire County Council are really excited to be supporting the ‘OxGrow’ Mentoring programme.
“As a large employer within the county, as well as being the county council, we feel that supporting and developing local talent to achieve employment and education is vital in creating a greater Oxfordshire.
“This programme will allow the team to engage with our community by providing support from our experience and knowledge, to better equip the users of this service to strive for their next steps which will hopefully provide positive outcomes. It is schemes like this that support the future workforce, and we are really excited at the opportunity of being a part of that movement.”
The Social Contract has been funded by the government’s Contain Outbreak Management Fund, with funding secured by OxLEP.
