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