Mount Street Trust Employment Initiative

INOU Building Futures employment initiative

We are delighted to report that the INOU is participating in an innovative three year project as part of the Mount Street Trust Employment Initiative (MST-EI) - an initiative of the Mount Street Club Trust, delivered by the INOU, Ballymun Job Centre and the One Parent Exchange Network (OPEN). The overall management agency for MST-EI is the Work Research Co-operative (WRC).

The Mount Street Trust's Employment Initiative is targeted at addressing poverty related to unemployment in the Greater Dublin Area. The aim of the MST-EI is to make a meaningful contribution to intervening in poverty by supporting organisations to develop and implement specially designed measures to support the labour market integration of specific vulnerable groups. The Initiative will also seek to develop a generic model of inclusive labour market service delivery capable of being adapted for the benefit of other groups and localities.

The specific objectives of the Initiative are to:

- Generate positive and durable outcomes for vulnerable groups through an integrated approach to addressing the multiple barriers such groups experience

- Develop innovation and good practice in relation to partnership approaches and integrated working

- Contribute to ongoing knowledge and practice in relation to appropriate responses to unemployment at the local level.

- Generate meaningful learning for policy and appropriate linkage to the policy context

The Initiative will run for a three year period from 2010 to end 2012.

As part of the initiative, the INOU is delivering FETAC accredited training courses and associated workplace internships which will draw on participants own life experiences to enable them to become peer educators, trainers and mentors. The project is operating in three areas within Dublin (Finglas, the Inner City area and Tallaght) and it is intended that the training course will enhance both the employment prospects of participants and also increase the expertise available to community and voluntary organisations at local level.

In the first year 15 participants from the Finglas and Ballymun area successfully completed the Building Futures programme.

The second year participants were from the Dublin Inner City area and successfully completed the Building Futures programme.

The Third year the participants are from the Tallaght area and course commenced in September 2012.