Community outreach Social Bite Louise Parfitt finds out how parking is benefiting from and supporting a project in Edinburgh that helps people who are experiencing housing issues back into work his time last year, a story on LinkedIn stopped Vanessa Bartie, HR and payroll manager at NSL, in her scrolling tracks. The post was from Social Bite, an Edinburgh-based social enterprise that provides meals, training and work for people who are homeless or struggling to buy food. It explained how the charity was launching an initiative, called Jobs First, to provide wider employment opportunities to the people it supports. Bartie was keen to find out more. We had looked before into helping people who had experienced homelessness back into employment, but it is quite hard to do because of the barriers involved, she explains. Those things that most of us take for granted can be big obstacles if you dont have a permanent address you cant get a bank account; or if you dont have proof of your right to work or your T national insurance number that is an issue. Social Bite helps people get those things in place and supports them to ensure they are ready for work. NSL, which is part of Marston Holdings, provides parking services for private companies and local authorities, including The City of Edinburgh Council. After speaking to Social Bite, the team at NSL prepared a job advert looking for parking attendants to work in Edinburgh. Joanne Yorkston, transport officer at The City of Edinburgh Council, said: It is great for us, as a council, to be able to offer opportunities to people who might not otherwise come forward for the jobs. Also, parking managers across the UK are finding it difficult to get staff at the moment, so this is a new avenue to try. Collaborative approach We brought all the applicants in for interview because we wanted to offer that experience Its a massive passion project of mine, and its been great to see how its taken off. Its definitely one of the most rewarding things I have got involved with to people who might not necessarily have much interview practice, says Bartie. We were delighted to be able to appoint two of them. Before they started work, Social Bite offered training to the NSL management team to give them a wider understanding of the issues their new employees might face. Social Bite assigns a support worker to each of their clients for the first 12 weeks or so that they are in the job, says Bartie. This allows both sides to feel supported to discuss any issues that may come up. For instance, early on, one of the people had a holiday request, but they felt nervous about asking for it because they had only just started work. They spoke to their support worker first and then they both came to us. It has been really beneficial for things like that, which many of us might not think would be a concern for someone in the workplace. NSL also has regular catch-ups with Social Bite where both sides offer feedback. Its really collaborative, Bartie says. Ongoing support Two more people have been taken on through 34 PN Nov 2022 pp34-35 Social Bite.indd 34 27/10/2022 14:05