The Shaw Trust - UK provider of employment services for people with disabilities and disadvantages

A HIGH-FLYING career woman, whose life collapsed after the tragic death of her twin sister, is soaring up the career ladder again after a new start in Blackpool.

Ann Hall, who was living in a local homeless hostel just months ago, was promoted within weeks of starting a new job, and a new life thanks to national charity Shaw Trust.
I can’t believe how my life has turned round, says 30 year-old Ann, who is now happily ensconced in her own flat and her challenging role as Training Manager for town centre tele-networking specialist company UKTNS.

I was at my lowest point when I arrived here last summer, after fleeing a violent ex-boyfriend in my hometown in Derbyshire. I picked Blackpool by random from a map, and I didn’t know a soul here.

Now it’s my home for good. I love my job, have made lots of friends and I really enjoy living by the seaside.
Meanwhile UKTNS MD Luke Watson is so impressed with Ann’s work and the employment services offered by Shaw Trust, which supports people with disabilities and disadvantages into work, that he is using the service to fulfil all of his recruitment needs.

University graduate Ann loved her Civil Service career in a Derbyshire benefits office, where her identical twin also worked. But everything changed one dark day when her sister died after a tragic accident at home.

Grieving Ann plummeted into a spiral of depression. Medication helped temporarily, but she was struggling to cope with her demanding job. Three years on she resigned, launched straight into a new job, but had to give that up too,

I was in a terrible state, she admits. It was a tragic accident that was no-one’s fault, but I had lost someone I loved to bits. At times I was suicidal, but I couldn’t do that to my parents.

Out of work for a year, problems with an ex-boyfriend were the final straw. She was striving to rebuild her life in Blackpool when she had to move out of a bedsit because of sexual harassment. I only had time to grab my personal possessions when I moved to the hostel. I managed to find myself a job, but I couldn’t afford the bus fare to travel for the medical they wanted me to have and I had no work clothes. I couldn’t see any way out.

Then she spotted a Shaw Trust poster, with a freephone number. The Trust is the UK’s leading provider of employment services for people with disabilities and disadvantages and has recently expanded its Job Broking services in Lancashire.

Shaw Trust advisor David McKee, based in Preston, immediately offered practical help. He also got her an interview with the MD of a rapidly expanding new company, who he’d met at a Lancashire Chamber of Trade Employers’ Forum. Luke Watson was expanding his new company and he needed quality staff. He asked David to help.

I have a totally open attitude to recruiting people with disabilities and was interested in investigating the possibility of Shaw Trust providing me with the right calibre of staff, says Lancashire man Luke, whose 20-person team, including six Shaw Trust clients, operates from Stanley Road.

I knew straight away that Ann was a high quality candidate and would fit easily into my company. Now, equally impressed with Ann’s quality of work, I have offered Shaw Trust the opportunity to fulfil all my recruitment needs on an ongoing basis, including the need for at least nine new Telemarketing Consultants.

Shaw Trust has also given me invaluable advice relating to other disability issues which could have an impact on my business and have introduced me to a number of other people, programmes and agencies who can also provide support.

Originally launched as a tele-networking service UKTNS is now almost wholly working on a government initiative to help to clean up the environment, by ensuring a wide take-up of the heating and insulation grants available to people on low income and benefits.

It’s definitely a feel-good job because we’re not selling, we’re offering people help for free, Luke explains. The biggest obstacle we face is overcoming people’s scepticism that the grants are free and for real.

Ann loves her new job: It’s so nice to be able to help people, a bit like it must feel like working for Shaw Trust, she smiles.

From the moment I contacted them, I’ve had 24 hour support. I wouldn’t be where I am now without Shaw Trust.
* Call Shaw Trust Job Brokers on freephone 0800 085 1001.