Papworth Trust has been awarded funding from Cambridgeshire County Council Public Health to launch a new employment support project designed to combat isolation and improve health and wellbeing.  

Positive Steps, launching on 6 June 2022, is two-and-a-half-year project which will support people to improve their physical and mental wellbeing in preparation for returning to employment. The project will be delivered in partnership with Able2B and Living Sport and will run for 12 weeks at a time, with each 12-week session supporting groups of up to 15 people.  

The project is based on a successful pilot Papworth Trust, Able2B and Living Sport carried out in 2021. The pilot shifted our focus to improving customers physical and mental health rather than the focus on employment. By focusing our support on customers mental and physical health, we were able to positively impact their wellbeing.  This in turn led to an overwhelming improvement in their ability to search for and apply for jobs and find employment. By the end of the pilot, all 13 customers who joined ended up completing the programme; two-thirds felt motivated and confident afterwards to actively start job searching and a third found paid employment shortly after.  

Una Davis, Deputy Director of Operations, said: 
“At Papworth Trust, we knew we needed to support our customers and change their mindset about what the future looked like. Taking the time to listen to customers helped us to realise the clear link between poor wellbeing (in particular mental and physical health) and disengagement with employment support. After all, meaningful engagement with employment support can only be achieved if people’s wellbeing is good.” 

Rebecca Evans, Partnerships Manager for Living Sport, said: 
“We are so pleased to be able to work with Papworth Trust and Able2B again to extend the programme that we piloted together in 2021. The pilot was a new approach using physical activity and confidence building to support improvements in mental and physical wellbeing. We were overwhelmed by the impact the programme had on all the participants and the progress they made in just 12 weeks was very impressive. The results inspired us to find a way to keep the programme running and keep learning to help participants develop, and it is very exciting to have the funding now in place for over 2 years.” 
 
Rachael Hutchinson, Co-founder of Able2B, said: 
“We are delighted to extend this project beyond the original pilot. It is a great example of the ethos of Able2B, helping people Discover their Ability and improve day to day life.”