Amodu Returns to Work Through the Restart Scheme

• The Growth Company (GC) delivers the Restart Scheme in Greater Manchester on behalf of Ingeus.
• Commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the scheme provides up to 12 months of enhanced support to people like Amodu, helping them find jobs in their local area.
• Find out how we helped Amodu return to work after the pandemic. 

Amodu was referred to the Restart Scheme by his local Job Centre Plus. He is a proud father of 3 children and was keen to return to work after becoming unemployed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

After his first meeting with Restart Advisor Maria, the two were able to establish the type of support Amodu needed. Maria sent him job adverts via email, called him with vacancies, and looked at roles during their reviews and fortnightly calls. Being educated to a degree level, Amodu demonstrated a strong motivation to progress, he just needed extra encouragement and personal guidance when applying for the jobs.

This included how to tailor his CV to specific roles, how to effectively answer interview questions, and how to stay motivated if an application wasn’t successful. Amodu quickly learnt how to adapt his applications to each role and saw any unsuccessful job applications as a learning curve, so he felt as though he was always making progress.

During his time on the scheme, Amodu attained a customer service qualification under B2W for contact centre operations level 1 – further showing his commitment to improve. During their meetings, Amodu and Maria looked at his progression, and utilised feedback from interviews to make the next one better. Maria referred him onto the Step into Work programme, and whenever a suitable role would be advertised via the job board, she would email the details to Amodu and work with him to apply for the role.

Amodu also had 18 months of experience working with the police, so Maria looked at other roles with similar responsibilities. Shortly after, a role working as security at Manchester Airport became vacant – Amodu applied and was successful, following Maria’s advice, starting in May earlier this year.

Amodu had this to say after his first meeting with Maria: “I knew you were going to be lucky for me when I met you.”

And following his employment, he emailed the team to say this: “I cannot believe this. You (Maria) only started as my Restart coach last month, and you have gotten me a job. Thanks for your support plus a world of encouragement.”

Commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions, The Growth Company delivers the Restart Scheme in Greater Manchester on behalf of Ingeus, the lead provider for this region.

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The Growth Company is an award-winning social enterprise with a mission to generate growth, create jobs, and improve lives. We provide employment services across Greater Manchester, the Liverpool City Region, Lancashire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire and Humber.

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