Joanne Feels Like A New Person After Better Off Finance

Building your confidence up after a long term of being unemployed can sometimes seem impossible! Thousands of thoughts will be running through your mind, have you got the right skills for the role? have you been unemployed too long to work anymore? they are endless and can bring your self esteem to the ground! 

Like many people, We met Joanne who questioned whether she'd ever have the confidence to climb back on the employment ladder...

Struggling with Depression and Anxiety, Joanne came to visit us after several years of unemployment feeling like she had no confidence in her abilities financially and no prospects of going back to work. Really wanting to take that step back into employability, she couldn’t find what direction to go in which only furthered her anxieties and fed her depression.

After several group sessions, Joanne now feels like a new person! She has become a financial capability volunteer at Citizens Advice and is actively looking for work. She believes that her confidence has increased so much that she is ‘forging a way forward’.

Better Off Finance can offer support with a range of different financial topics, such as looking for better supermarket deals to switching energy suppliers and insurance which Joanne has found extremely useful to use in her day to day life. Living on a tight budget with a young daughter, one useful skill she has found is to search online for better weekly shop deals by using My Supermarket, a shopping comparison website.

“I can now save on my outgoings, and I can start saving some money for a ‘rainy day’ fund”

People who participant in our Better Off Finance programme often leave the programme with the motivation to start improving their quality of life, like Joanne who is starting a computer course with Age UK and has enrolled to start another course to better her chances of employment, whilst alongside completing her level 2 in Health and Safety at working training course!

From having no confidence and fears of getting back into employment, we can now see her volunteering at Citizens Advice Wirral, where she offers support to people attending the BOF programme “I absolutely love it, I’m hooked!”

Joanne has now been able to make herself financially stable and is building her skills and CV for any potential job opportunities in the future.

“I would highly recommend the course, the level of support I received was amazing, please meet the team and see for yourself”

What a great experience, Thanks for sharing your story Joanne! and Good Luck in your future.

About us: 

Better Off Finance is offering residents of the Liverpool City Region who are currently unemployed (although don't have to be claiming benefits), a bespoke programme of support. This support will be provided at a local community venue or at home if a participant prefers.

Each participant will be linked up with their own key worker who will support them to:

• Improve their financial capability through 1-2-1 support and group work
• Access employability sessions within the programme
• Access a Level 2 Accredited ‘Money Mentor’ opportunity
• Progress into training and education opportunities
• Prepare and progress into sustainable employment.

Please contact us via our Facebook or Twitter pages to make a referral or for further information.
 

Better Off Finance is a program jointly funded by The Big Lottery Fund and European Social Fund as part of the Building Better Opportunities Initiative 

Journey Through The My Turn Programme

Since the launch of our My Turn Programme in April 2018, our trainers have been travelling around the Liverpool City Region helping people just like you Think, Believe & Achieve! We were lucky enough to hear from our trainer Victoria Hart who gave us a taster of what My Turn covers. 

Let’s hand over to Victoria as she takes us through the MyTurn journey during her Wirral Citizens Advice sessions…

Starting off the "Think, Believe & Achieve" session with 10 participants, we start with an icebreaker session, which is always a brilliant way to allow a group to get to know each other and meet the people they are going to be spending the programme with. We found out about hobbies and achievements which produced some brilliant discussions, including finding out one member of the group had abseiled down Devils Gorge in Mold, and another had met Amanda Holden! It was a fantastic way for everyone to introduce themselves.

We moved on to an important discussion of confidence and what the group thought confidence was. From this discussion, some great suggestions were put forward

“Being comfortable with yourself” and “being able to say no”

From the points raised, the group then identified situations where they would need to feel confident. Throughout the morning, we focused on the practical strategies for improving confidence on a day to day basis, from visualisation to power stances.

Before breaking for lunch, we also delved into barriers that the group through they needed to overcome and were able to help each other thing about the ways in which they could overcome them. The group found hearing other people’s stories useful, as it made them realise that others are going through the same thing, something that made them feel less isolated.

We recommenced with assertiveness. In a group, we identified the differences between aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive and assertive behaviour. Using celebrities, the group identified that assertive behaviour can sometimes be seem as a negative thing and that there are many derogatory words related to being assertive. We discussed how assertiveness can be used in different situations and how confidence has a link to assertiveness.

The group reflected on what they found the most useful during the session

“Understanding how confidence and the relation to wellbeing”

“Meeting new people and learning new things about other people’s issues”

“It’s good information with useful practical advice”

Thanks Victoria! Sounds like some great things were covered, and big congratulations to our My Turn participants! 

New dates available below!

About us:

Working as part of the Better off Finance Programme My Turn is a 2-day Programme of personal development. The My Turn Programme will provide the opportunity for you to take time out for yourself and think about ‘What’s next?’

The programme offers you the opportunity to attend both days or just one day. You can find out more information about the programme here 

Please contact us by calling 0151 706 8111 or email hello@thewo.org.uk to book onto the programme or for further information.

Better Off Finance is a program jointly funded by The Big Lottery Fund and European Social Fund as part of the Building Better Opportunities Initiative 

Helping Adam To Adjust

You may have heard about Universal Credit and how it's affecting people in the benefit system. With 1.42 million unemployed people in the UK, the welfare state is becoming more relied on than ever. It's predicted that by 2022, more than seven million households will be scheduled to receive Universal Credit, and with many people talking about the underlying problems with the new system, it's vital that people can properly understand the changes they will be going through. 

People like Adam, who came to get support from our Better Off Finance Knowsley team after recently having been switched from ESA (a health related benefit) and moved to Universal Credit. Like many others, he wasn't completely clear about what these changed meant and we were able to help. 

Struggling to manage day to day living costs was hard, especially on his newly reduced income but with the support from his key worker, Adam is now able to understand his benefits more and can manage the money he has coming in.

“I didn’t understand the changes to my benefits, particularly Universal Credit. I got a lot of advice and information on what it means as well as help applying for further support”

Here at Better Off Finance we want to help our participants understand the benefits system,  and be able to take the pressure off understanding the important stuff when it comes to claiming what you’re entitled to. As well as being experts around the benefits system, our key workers are also able to advise people on grants and awards to help them out of hardship and enable them to start thinking about a more positive future. This is exactly how they helped Adam with his debt.

“My key worker helped me access a charitable trust award of £220 towards clothes which has enabled me to buy smart clean clothes to be prepared for potential interviews”

Adam really benefited from having the constant financial support to help him make more sense of his money and his future options. When asked about what he would say about anyone looking for help he said: “I would really recommend Better Off Finance. Before this support I felt very down and didn’t know where to turn for advice, but I feel much more positive now”

Feeling more confident and able to take on new challenges, Adam is ready to move on towards a positive future and raves about the free support he went into not knowing what to expect 

“On signing up I expected one or two appointments, but I’ve be able to return multiple times across the last few months and have gotten help with issues I didn’t even know I could get help with!”

Good luck to you on your journey Adam and thank you for sharing your story!

About us: 

Better Off Finance is offering residents of the Liverpool City Region who are currently unemployed (although don't have to be claiming benefits), a bespoke programme of support. This support will be provided at a local community venue or at home if a participant prefers.

Each participant will be linked up with their own key worker who will support them to:

• Improve their financial capability through 1-2-1 support and group work

• Access employability sessions within the programme

• Access a Level 2 Accredited ‘Money Mentor’ opportunity

• Progress into training and education opportunities

• Prepare and progress into sustainable employment.

Please contact us via our Facebook or Twitter pages to make a referral or for further information.

Better Off Finance is a program jointly funded by The Big Lottery Fund and European Social Fund as part of the Building Better Opportunities Initiative