Soldier On! - the charity bringing hope and confidence to jobless

Last week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned that the UK’s unemployment rate could hit as high as 14.8 per cent.

On top of that, we know that at least 150,000 jobs have now been cut, or put at risk, at more than 60 major British employers during lockdown, and the pace of redundancies has picked up in recent weeks as companies try and work out if they can afford to take back furloughed staff.

According to a recent report, compiled by McKinsey, the highest number of people in the ‘at risk’ category are those people on low incomes, earning less than £10 per hour before coronavirus arrived.

A significant number of those facing being made redundant are among the most vulnerable in our society, including people with lower skills, those with disabilities and part-time workers.

As well as the financial impact of large scale job losses, there are concerns that people’s mental and physical health will suffer, with the number of cases of depression expected to increase in the coming months.

It is something that the charity Soldier On! is trying to tackle.

The organisation was founded in 2008, initially with a focus on helping military veterans who were struggling to adjust to civilian life and hold down a job through personal development programmes.

But since the start of 2018, it has expanded its reach to offer support to anyone in need of help, as well as running archaeology fieldwork projects – including excavation work on the site of a 12th century priory near Doncaster that helped volunteers with troubled backgrounds.

Now, another of the charity’s programmes – which has helped more than 600 people who have lost their jobs – is being made available to people losing their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic and organisations forced to make redundancies.

Soldier On! will be running a number of in-house group courses costing £5,000 for up to 10 people, as well as one-to-one support for individuals from £55 per session.

Nicholas Harrison, who set up Soldier On!, says the money will help fund more courses for disabled and vulnerable jobseekers.

Harrison, a leadership coach whose background is in recruitment, believes there is an urgent need for this kind of support.

“Our charity was set up at the height of the last financial crash. Since that time, we have helped many hundreds of people to secure new futures, the majority of whom didn’t know what they wanted to do.”

A lot of job training revolves around CV writing and interview techniques. Harrison says his charity is offering something tailored to the needs of an individual.

“We’re not a recruitment company so don’t have a list of vacancies and we also don’t put people through generic computer-based personality assessments. What we do is equip people with the necessary tools to enable them to create a career plan that is focused entirely on them, their unique situation and needs.”

He adds: “Many people who have been made redundant recently will not have been in the job finding process for many years and may not have the skills they need.

“So our job is instil confidence, hope and a level of control in people and make them understand that they do have choices, and help them so they can present their value and skills to a potential employer.”

Visit www.soldieron.org.uk for more information

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