Samantha's vocation to help finds a perfect outlet as a Fair Chance Employer

"I’m very much an advocate for people to get chances to develop and grow themselves. I love to see that happen and I love to enable it to happen if I possibly can and the Fair Chance Employer programme is a great way to do that.”

Two women who have taken up a work placement at a Fair Chance Employer in Nuneaton are making an “absolutely fantastic” contribution to the company.

Sam and Katy are on a three-week placement at Applewood Support, a social care company based in Attleborough Road.

Applewood’s Business Development Manager, Samantha Jones, loved the concept of Warwickshire County Council’s Fair Chance Employer programme as soon as she heard about it. The programme, managed by Warwickshire Skills Hub, works collaboratively with education providers and employability groups to help employers offer residents with supportive needs equal access to careers.

Samantha was delighted to welcome Sam and Katy on board in temporary admin roles…and is just as delighted by their input to her six-strong office team which administrates a team of 28 carers working in the homes of clients in the Nuneaton area.

“They have both been absolutely fantastic,” she said. “They are making a huge contribution.

“When people think about a care business they often think about just the caring and how we look after clients, but there’s a whole other side of it – the side that goes on in the office and really drives the whole business.  Sam and Katy have fitted in brilliantly and been real assets to us.”

“I am conscious from my own experience of being on work experience years ago that sometimes you only get a vague idea of what goes on at a business, so I have really tried to give them a proper, immersive experience because that will give them skills they can use in the future.

“The Fair Chance programme is fantastic, The whole process, from the initial idea through to meeting the ladies with their work coaches and then them starting with us, was really easy. I couldn’t recommend it more highly.

“I think it’s good for my staff too to have new faces to keep the office fresh because it’s important that they are in touch with the community. Yes, as a business, we give when we are out there with clients, but this is another way to give something back. Not that it’s one-way-street at all…I’m really keen to have more work placements though I feel a bit cheeky, in a way, because they are working for us, and doing great work, for free!”

Sam and Katy’s placements will hopefully sow seeds for enriching careers ahead. If that is the case, no-one will be happier than Samantha who brings to her work at Applewood the vocation of her training as a teacher and a sustained desire to help everybody make the best of themselves.

She also brings the empathy and people skills gathered from a diverse career path which has ranged from music teacher and professional singer to warehouse worker and supermarket order-picker.  

“Working as a professional singer is very seasonal,” Sam said. “From March to October you work 100 miles per hour, then in the winter it might be, ‘I might eat this month, I don’t know!’ You have to pick up what work you can, so I did a lot of temping. Then I worked in logistics, operations management, stock management and then came the Covid lockdowns so there were no singing gigs at all. I was working from 2am until 7am order-picking at Tesco then went straight to a warehouse job from 7.30am to 5.30pm which was hard going.

"Then I joined the Applewood team as Compliance Officer and later took on a training and mentoring role. That progressed to recruitment and marketing and now my role’s grown to Business Development Manager.  I love it. Whatever I do I try my best, there is no point in being half-hearted, and when I came to work here and saw how hard the girls worked and how exhausted the managers were, I thought, ‘hey I can help here, I can take stuff of people and inject some new energy.’ That’s what it’s all about, not just inspiring our wonderful carers but also the equally wonderful office staff who do many hard yards.

“Coming from a teaching background, I love to see people getting and seizing opportunities. I’m very much an advocate for people to get chances to develop and grow themselves. I love to see that happen and I love to enable it to happen if I possibly can and the Fair Chance Employer programme is a great way to do that.”