GEMS NI

  M-Power provides an engagement mentoring service to disadvantaged communities in South/East Belfast supporting, encouraging and enabling long-term unemployed, economically inactive/ workless people to take advantage of training and development opportunities, access to employment and the added value outcome of increasing their potential to contribute to capacity building in their own communities.

The M-Power Team of  four experienced Guidance Practitioners/Mentors  work at neighbourhood level through creating partnerships with community organisations to  identify, access and  engage the hardest to reach and hardest to help residents.

 Through community engagement, intensive mentoring support to individuals and the  ability to make and monitor appropriate linkages, the M-Power  Team bridge service delivery gaps for local people and communities, connect residents to the local labour market and leverage support from other sources including statutory services, local government, community representatives and community based organisations, specialist voluntary sector agencies and employers/employer organisations. 

 M-Power Delivering Engagement Mentoring

The M-Power model is Engagement Mentoring based on the development of a relationship of trust at individual and community level, developing the ‘emotional lift’ required to achieve the ‘positional shift’ needed to support people who face multiple barriers to employment and learning who are not actively engaging with or supported by existing service providers to transition from worklessness into the labour market.

M-Power works to overcome barriers to participation through :

• Providing active advice / advocacy to individuals enabling them to consider work and learning opportunities
• Exploring supports required and how to access these
• Breaking down the local culture of welfare/benefit dependency
• Developing supportive work and learning models which tackle inter-generational worklessness
• Encouraging individuals, local stakeholder organisations and service providers to improve low levels of educational attainment and the corresponding low skill levels and essential skills/ESOL issues

Access to education/training is a key factor in enhancing the employment opportunities for people and communities; M-Power advocates for training activities at community level which reflect the diversity of need, capacity and motivation within people and communities with the emphasis on training that is structured to overcome barriers that may prevent participation as identified through Engagement Mentoring.

M-Power responds to the gap in the delivery of mainstream employment and learning services by targeting programmes and services to people and their communities which engage them in employment and learning paths. Engagement Mentoring will take advantage of existing mainstream and other funded work using the work of other service providers in the forward strategies developed with individuals and communities. 

The emphasis is on avoiding duplication and enabling people to make the most effective use of already available resources.  This approach will support individuals in workless communities through developing localised strategies and approaches that combine informal networks, outreach and cross referral with employment linkage activities.  M-Power mentors will provide the link between employment and learning programmes and services and the aspirations and needs of local residents and local employers through:

• Working closely with residents and stakeholders to identify local issues and priorities and develop local strategies in response to these issues
•  Linking the community to employment and training agencies, programmes and services
• Engaging and advocating to businesses on the development of localised strategies to support employment and training paths to jobs
• Linking employment and training opportunities to jobs coming on track from urban regeneration initiatives
• Supporting the involvement of people in volunteering

M-Power provides individual support based upon 3 distinct phases of intervention outlined below:

For further information on M-Power you can contact:

Andrew Snowdon -  GEMS NI   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it   028 90 332313

Michelle McNally  -     Ballynafeigh, Short Strand & Donegall Pass This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  028 90 332313

Sean Hayes -            Markets and Lower Ormeau This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 028 90 332313

Naomi Hutchinson -  Sandy Row, Greater Village & Inner East  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 028 90 332313

Funders