Imagine going through the trauma of fleeing a war-torn country, desperately waiting years to have your asylum application approved then suddenly,
your’re expected to find a job where you don’t really know the language and you certainly don’t have an understanding of how it feels to be in a UK workplace. What’s secret Santa? Why do you have to put money in for someone’s birthday? And what does WFH mean?
That’s where TLC steps in. Thanks to funding from Liverpool City Council, we are supporting refugees and asylum seekers in the city to move them closer to the job market and understand more about British work culture.
This funding has allowed us to create a brand-new project which not only has the refugees and asylum seekers front and centre but has had them as part of the development of the project.
We held focus groups with the target audience explaining what we wanted from the project, and we wanted their help to create how the sessions looked.
We also discussed areas around well-being, social life and other ways TLC could support them. The response was to provide a space where they felt safe, supported and where they could feel confident applying for jobs.
We then took the feedback and started to design the programme. We felt that well-being and their lack of confidence in speaking English were the priorities before we even got to job preparation. So, we created a 15-session plan. The first session would be an English session, and the following would be wellbeing, we alternated those sessions finishing off with five employability sessions. We included employer visits and mock interviews with employers to help our participants with interviews.
The funding has allowed us to invest in a member of the team to complete the level 5 CELTA qualification which is a worldwide qualification to teach English to people where English isn’t their first language).
We have also included some practical sessions with a trip to the Liverpool Museum to put that learning into practice and promote the social aspect of the project.
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One of our participants said, ‘All the things you bring to us has value.’
Another said, ‘I enjoy spending time with new friends.’
Our main aim is to help our participants move closer to the job market, but we also know how important the other aspects of the project are and it’s great to see our participants benefiting from a bit of TLC.
If you're interested in our ESOL into work program, you can email
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