Supporting deaf jobseekers to become job keepers!

July 4, 2011 - PRLog -- After 10 years of successfully delivering a range of interpreting and communication services for the Deaf community in England, Scotland and Wales, Clarion decided that they wanted to do more! Employment is a huge issue for Deaf and hard of hearing people and the Government’s Work Programme gave Clarion a great opportunity to use their vision, clarity and innovation to provide new services to help Deaf people find and keep jobs.

Clarion is very excited to announce they will now be delivering employment services under the Government’s new Work Programme. Clarion Work Focus will deliver full employment services in Hull and Birmingham from the 13th of June. However, Clarion also secured a further 18 contracts across the UK and will use these contracts to deliver their new and innovative employment model, that will finally make mainstream employment services accessible to Deaf and hard of hearing jobseekers.

Across the 18 contracts Clarion will be supplying Communication and Employment Consultants (CECs) who are fully qualified Communication Support Workers (CSWs) with employment advisor skills and knowledge. As well as providing mainstream employment service providers with communication support they will deliver a range of job seeking activities that will support Deaf and hard of hearing jobseekers into and at work.

With obvious cost benefits to employment providers the ‘Communication and Employment Consultants’ will provide an accessible and truly empathetic employment service for Deaf and hard of hearing people looking for sustainable employment.

A key partner for Clarion will be Ingeus, the largest provider of the Work Programme across the UK. Louise Preston, Ingeus’ Operations Director for East Midlands explained, “we are really excited that Clarion are part of our specialised supply chain as they bring a fresh approach to supporting deaf and hard of hearing customers. Their new Communication and Employment model delivers on the Government’s pledge to provide tailored support that meets the needs of individuals through the Work Programme”

The idea came about by recognising a need. Currently there is no national employment service for Deaf people and only small pockets of support at a local level. Specialist Deaf sub-contractors are better placed to meet the needs of Deaf job seekers but because Deaf jobseekers are a very low incidence group; the number of people in most areas is just not high enough to make a contract financially viable. The challenge was to come up with an idea that would meet the real needs of Deaf and hard of hearing job seekers across the country and Clarion feel they have achieved this. Sally Chalk, Clarions CEO explained “the feedback from Prime Contractors has been outstanding, with many telling us that this is the solution they have been waiting for. This exciting model will allow us to indirectly support over 1,500 Deaf jobseekers on the Work Programme and without it many of these people would not receive the appropriate support required to have equal access and opportunity”.

ENDS

If you would like more information about Clarion Work Focus and our involvement in the Work Programme please contact us:

Bob Marsh, National Operations Manager. Tel: 01763 209001 Email: work@clarioncall.net SMS: 07850 203 642

Cheryl Cullen, Head of Business Development. Tel: 01763 209001 Email: cheryl.cullen@clarioncall.net

# # #

Clarion provides a range of services to deaf and hearing customers nationwide. Services include British Sign Language (BSL) interpreting, deafblind interpreting, 42 foreign sign languages, a range of support services in BSL, deaf awareness training and teaching BSL. We provide interpreting, translating and presenting for accessible formats and media. Clarion Work Focus offers specialist employment advice services for deaf people, helping them to seek and keep jobs. We are also an outsourcing partner to government bodies with an emergency 24/7 service for the police services and hospitals across the country.

Clarion was set up in 2002 and although we have grown considerably since then, we still retain our roots in the local deaf community and are committed to providing an excellent service for local people. Our passion for what we do and our beliefs in equality of access has not changed one iota. Last year we were the largest company in the BSL interpreting sector (Plimsoll 2010).