LifeWorks Journey Week 2012

Lifeworks, supported by ABF the soldiers’ charity, is an innovative employment guidance service for the Armed Forces Community, enabling them to build on their existing skills beyond the Armed Forces and achieve sustainable work.

This week (13-17th Feb) is RBLI's LifeWorks Journey Week 2012, each day we have been releasing former LifeWorks delegates’ video journeys to: http://www.rbli.co.uk/rbli/companynews/131/

To round off LifeWorks Journey Week 2012 we are releasing a new interactive LifeWorks Update Brochure which will explain how LifeWorks can help, when it will be provided and how the course has developed.

Open publication - Free publishing - More aremf forces

National Apprenticeship Week:

RBLI starts National Apprenticeship Week by welcoming a further apprentice to our team and monitoring next steps for another.  Callum Orpin joins our Property Services Team this week.    One of the apprentices working in our Healthcare Team having recently completed her apprenticeship with RBLI  has just commenced full time nursing training as a result. 

For RBLI, having apprentices in our business continues to be a valuable and rewarding experience, providing a number of business benefits.   We are confident our apprentices gain a wide range of benefits in return. 

"The apprenticeship has proven to be extremely diverse, and I have been given the opportunity to undertake a variety of different roles and responsibilities each providing me with masses of knowledge, experience and skills that are invaluable." Nicole Freiter, RBLI Marketing Apprentice.

Nicole Freiter, currently serving an apprenticeship with our Marketing Team, is testament to that and you can read her story at http://www.rbli.co.uk/rbli/companynews/130/. For more information about apprenticeships visit http://www.apprenticeships.org.uk/

2011 in numbers...

When reviewing RBLI’s achievements in 2011 my eye was quickly drawn towards a series of numbers:

• We have enabled 350 people to find employment through the Work Programme and have started assisting 4700 individuals who are long term unemployed.

• We have given 5224 members of the Armed Forces community, employment and training information, advice and guidance through the Civvy Street programme.

• LifeWorks, our new vocational assessment service, has worked with 45 wounded, injured and sick ex Service personnel.

•  65 members of the Armed Forces have attended the Army Recovery Courses (ARC) on our site in Aylesford, Kent.

• We have supported 3 young ex-Gurkhas, one of whom has recently started employment in our Signs Department, by providing accommodation in our village.

•  We are proud to have a workforce consisting of 88 employees with disabilities.

• 300,000 pieces K’NEX (construction toy), have been assembled by our specialist team for a range of global displays (see our monster truck).

• 36,000 road and rail signs have been produced by our Signs Department.

• 237,000 new pallets have been built by our Pallet Department. 510,000 other pallets have been inspected, maintained and returned to the system.

• Our village hosts 50 people in our high dependency care home, 38 in our assisted living home and a further 137 in our houses.

• 3 new apprentices have joined our team. We hope that this number will grow in 2012.

•  With a combined age of 153, 3 members of our Senior Management Team, successfully completed the Maidstone Half Marathon and the hope is that the number of RBLI runners will increase in 2012 thereby reducing the average age of participants!

•  54 local children with special needs and their carers attended a Christmas Party as part of our own charitable contribution to our community.

• 176 people ‘Like’ our new Facebook page

•  504 people ‘follow’ @RBLI on Twitter.

•  RBLI videos have been watched 1,047 time on YouTube.

  

A total of 300 RBLI staff made all of the above numbers happen. Of course, the numbers merely give some idea of scale of effort. What is less easy to describe is the dedication, passion and commitment that is required to deliver such high quality services that I see as I visit all of our activities. I do hope that our blog and social medias will, through articles and photographs, better illustrate the work of RBLI and all our staff.

From all at RBLI, I wish you a very happy 2012.

New Partnership Project:

Next week we begin delivery of an exciting new pilot programme.  Working in partnership with Russet Homes, we will deliver an assessment and preparation for employment course to 10 residents from a local housing estate.  The project will run for 6 weeks and attendees will benefit from a range of employment related modules such as CV preparation and interview technique.   When they have finished the programme, we hope that attendees will have opportunities to take up work placements with RBLI,  Russet Homes or other local businesses.   We are pleased to be working with Russet Homes to deliver this innovative project, which we hope will be the start of a long and successful partnership.     The aim is to roll out the project to a wider group of residents and work with Russet Homes to support a range of employment initiatives that they are introducing to help residents get back to work.

We are pleased to be working with Russet Homes to deliver this innovative project, which we hope will be the start of a long and successful partnership.

This project is one of a range of partnership projects that RBLI will be developing and delivering over the coming months.   Look out for more details on each of these as they progress.

K’nex Big Build Unveiled:

This week our latest K’NEX big build project was finally unveiled.   After 1,000 hours of work and 6 weeks of trans atlantic travel,  the life size Grave Digger monster truck arrived in San Antonio to start its tour of America.

Grave Digger was built to commemorate the 30^th anniversary of the American Monster Truck and 20th anniversary of construction toy company K'NEX.   Working in partnership with K’NEX and Feld Entertainment, the life size truck was built by the Assembly team here at RBLI using no less than 226,000 pieces of K’NEX.

The monster truck had become a familiar site in our factory at Aylesford as staff and visitors watched it progress from a very large pile of K'NEX pieces into a resplendent copy of the original Grave Digger truck.   It had become so much a part of RBLI, that we were sorry to see it loaded into its container in late November to begin its 5,000 mile journey.    It will now tour the Monster Jam festivals across America before reaching its final resting place – Digger's Dungeon in North Carolina.

This has been another great K’NEX build project for the RBLI Assembly Team and we await with anticipation details of the next one! Watch this space for videos of the construction process!

And finally...

We also look forward to continuing working in partnership with TRBL as they progress work on their employability strategy.    This is a real opportunity for a group of ex Service charities who already work closely both with TRBL and each other informally to take a more strategic approach to working in partnership for the benefit of our mutual beneficiaries.  The organisations involved are the Poppy Factory, Poppy Scotland, RFEA and the Officers’ Association and the aim is to develop and deliver an employability support model which will provide better access to information, advice and guidance through a ‘one stop shop’ approach.

Launching ‘VICTOR’

Continuing the theme of working in partnership, which will be a key focus of our work through 2012, we are also pleased to be working with the charity, Blue Sky to deliver ‘VICTOR’ – a project aimed to provide support to ex Service ex offenders.   

This project will provide employment support to move individuals into sustainable employment and reduce the risk of re-offending.    Customers will be given support with CV writing, developing job search skills, interview techniques whilst undertaking temporary employment and training in grounds maintenance work.  The first project launches in April with Medway Council who will contract out grounds maintenance work to the Victor team.   We look forward to further such initiatives being developed with other Organisations over the coming months.