Community Partner Spotlight: Emma McKenzie, Converge
Introducing April’s Community Partner Spotlight blog! This feature is designed to give an insight into one of our Community Partners, to find out a bit more about what they do, and to learn about their experience of working with York Cares.
This month’s feature is written by Emma McKenzie, Team Lead at Converge. We have been working with Converge in collaboration with employee-volunteers from boxxe over the last couple of years and we’re delighted that boxxe are supporting Converge again in May.
Community Partners are vital to our work as they’re our links into the community and allow us to get people involved in activity across our programmes. Thank you Emma for taking the time to write this feature and for being one of our wonderful Community Partners.
Emma writes, “Have you ever felt anxious before going to an event, and then once you are there it all feels OK, and you kick yourself for getting so wound up about it? Everybody feels anxiety in life, but when it is combined with a mental health illness it can become out of control and spiral into fear that is debilitating. Converge at York St John University offer support to people 18 or over struggling with mental health illness to step back into an educational environment and try out new subjects and being back in a learning environment. Once people get the courage to come onto campus it can be life changing, giving people new hope and identity.
The icing on the cake for Converge has been working with York Cares and boxxe over the last two years. York Cares spotted an opportunity for us to help the Converge Students that access Converge to make the next steps into training, education and employment. York Cares matched us to a company called boxxe who are a tech company but were happy to share transferable employment skills with our Converge Student community. boxxe have delivered a series of employability themed workshops that take the fear factor out of going back into the workplace.
We find that people accessing Converge often assume that they won’t stand a chance in getting back into work once they declare a mental health illness and if they have been out of work for a long time. boxxe have proved that this just isn’t the case, they have shown our Converge students how supportive employers can improve mental health by making appropriate reasonable adjustments and helping someone to feel valued and useful again. They have also inspired our Converge students by allowing us to visit their offices and to meet their staff who couldn’t have been more friendly, inspiring some of our Converge students to go back into higher education, employment and training opportunities. It really gives people a boost meeting such a positive employer and beginning to think about what might be possible, rather than only focusing on the challenges.”
One of the Converge students who attended last year’s course with boxxe has also shared their thoughts, “When I first heard about the boxxe IT classes, I was intrigued. What will this do for me? What will happen when I show up? Will I be able to cope? I’m Bipolar and have a severe hand tremor, so work these days is very hard for me, even on ‘good’ days. But…so many friendly faces were there on our first day, and boxxe were so nice, that I was quickly put at ease. We talked about the difficulties we all can face returning to the job market after many years’ absence. We chatted about films, there was free coffee and biscuits.
A few weeks into the course (sounds so formal, but it really wasn’t!) boxxe invited us over to their offices, which are not far at all from campus. We had a great tour, visitors’ passes, and we saw their stunning views of York. We were really inspired to hear about some of the roles at boxxe and thinking about wider possibilities for opportunities in the local community.
So would I recommend you go?
Absolutely. If it’s not for you, no harm.
But if you really are nervous about going back to work, if you have any concerns, then this may well be for you. Have a chat with Emma (at Converge), email her and let her know you’re interested. I certainly had a lovely time, and feel much more confident about applying to any business even though I am severely disabled. Good Luck!”
You can find out more about Converge by visiting their website.
If you’re one of our Community Partners and you’d like to feature in an upcoming Community Partner Spotlight feature, we’d love to hear from you. Contact Georgia via info@yorkcares.co.uk for more information.
