Employment charity Tomorrow's People celebrates 25th Anniversary at Plymouth Reception

National employment charity Tomorrow's People has been helping long-term unemployed people back into work for 25 years. On June 19th the charity held an evening drinks reception in the Reception Room at The Council House in Plymouth to mark the occasion.

Tomorrow's People has been operating in Plymouth since 1996 and is currently running a number of initiatives providing employment support to the local community.

The longest running initiative is 'Workroute', a project offering free, one to one outreach support to the hardest to reach people, in order to help them gain sustainable employment. Tomorrow's People Advisers work with clients to help them overcome barriers to work, and build the confidence and self-esteem needed to take the steps towards the world of work, as well as developing the skills needed to achieve employment. Once someone finds a job, Tomorrow's People provides an after-care service to both the individual and the employer to ensure a long-term success. Since it began in 1996, over 6000 people have benefited from the Workroute programme.

Tomorrow's People also provides a confidential debt counselling service, Moneywise, to help local people with their financial concerns, a service for which there is a very high demand in Plymouth. The Moneywise initiative provides a direct link in to Workroute, so that individuals are supported into sustainable employment to help pay off debts and to move away from welfare dependency.

Tomorrow's People is supported in the region by global pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, which provides funding support and office space for a Tomorrow's People Adviser in their Brixham Environmental Laboratory. This enables Tomorrow's People to extend the employment support service to unemployed people in the Brixham area, as well as outreach advice to GP Surgeries in Torbay and Newton Abbot.

Tomorrow's People also works specifically with young people, delivering Working It Out, an initiative which targets disadvantaged young people aged 16-24 who are not in employment, education or training, working with them over a 16 week period to help them to develop the skills they need to move forward with their lives. The course centres around a series of 'community challenges' which the young people choose, design and resource themselves, learning to work together as a team whilst giving something back to the local community. The challenges are accompanied by intensive, practical and personalised support such as help with CVs, interview techniques and job-search support.

Tomorrow's People believes that in the current economic climate our services will be more in demand than ever. We are confident that with the excellent team we have in Newcastle our work in the region will continue to go from strength to strength. Tomorrow's People is a national charity, with a 25-year track record of success in helping people out of long-term unemployment, welfare dependency, and into jobs and self-sufficiency. Since 1984, the charity has helped change the lives of more than 400,000 people across the UK who had been resigned to long-term, even life-long, unemployment.