The MyGeneration Job Club, which is open to people aged 16+, has been running for three years and is very successful in providing access to employment and training to people from hard-to-reach communities. It differs from other services in its field as we actively go out into the community to obtain clients, including those with criminal records.  We go door to door, carry out leaflet drops, utilise outreach workers as well as using our other activities to promote Job Cub.  We sponsor training which attracts people and give one to one peer support and advice.  The current clientele, through word of mouth, attract new clientele and where possible, we train and guide our existing clients to instruct or support new ones.  Occasionally people need specialist equipment to carry out their work, for which we may provide financial assistance.   We also work with local and London-based businesses in order to provide new training and employment opportunities with guaranteed work placements.  The researcher will prepare career packages and training routes as well as develop Job Club systems in order to replicate them in other geographical areas.

We offer support with confidence-building and encourage clients to seek sustainable careers rather than simply pushing them into menial labour.  We also assist in CV and letter writing and provide the use of our computers, internet, telephones, faxing and photocopying. 

From May 2006 to March 2009 MyGeneration successfully placed 180 people in employment and 220 in to training.  This is 40% of all the potential beneficiaries we approached, who came to our drop in three times a week.

North Kensington is an area of high long-term unemployment with many people from hard-to reach communities. Almost half the population was born outside the UK. There is a large Moroccan community where 80% are unemployed, 31% of people age 16-74 have no qualifications and 9.6% of people aged 16-74 are unemployed. The bulk of our clients are from the "BME" community .  We also have a significant poor white working class community and the current trend with the youth from this community group seems to be the want to seek sustainable employment as many have seen their parents struggle due to the lack of employable skills and ability to speak English.

We are tackling poverty by providing people with high levels of employment support, broadening skills, giving them access to careers rather than low paid unskilled menial work. Through practical support and bridging grants, we remove the obstacles and give confidence to the long-term unemployed with low self-esteem.

The emphasis in our Job Club is on people gaining marketable qualifications in order to build career paths. We often sponsor people into training who are already in employment because their current job has no future prospects of development and is low paid. 80% of our client base is from black or ethnic minorities and much of our outreach work is targeted at these groups. We have workers and volunteers picked specifically from these groups to address any language or cultural barriers. A large proportion of our client group are ex-offenders and we support them in a very particular manner i.e. they get intense one-to-one assistance. We help them obtain ID and cover the costs as this is often an obstacle when trying to obtain work.

Our model directly involves our users in consultations, recruitment and all of our work is evaluated by MyGeneration as well as outside agencies to check the standard of our work. Our standard evaluation is usually assessed via various methods such as our Job Club client files, which contain a complete contact log showing the route and outcome of all cases. We also obtain feedback from our clients and hold regular evaluation sessions where we give our clients the right to reply.