Innovation & Community
Knowledge Transfer Partnership
Routes To Work are delighted to have joined Social Value UK - an impactful and passionate network of organisations and individuals seeking to create a positive impact for people and the planet.
At the heart of our organisation, we strive to make a positive difference to the lives of our clients and contribute to reducing poverty and creating a society where everyone has a good quality of life.
To achieve those aims, we developed a Social Value Evaluation Framework, Routes To Impact, to evidence, celebrate and maximise the positive social value created as a result of our employability and skills services.
The development, pilot and embedding of the framework is a central part of our Knowledge Transfer Partnership with the University of the West of Scotland, supported by a multidisciplinary team of nine Academics from the Schools of Business & Creative Industries and Health & Life Sciences.
In October 2022, we submitted our forecast social value report for assurance from Social Value UK, and we are progressing toward embedding social value throughout our organisation’s decisions, culture and services.
With this progress and now our organisational membership to Social Value UK, we can better understand and improve our services to enable the most impactful employability interventions.
Routes To Work is a charity that exists to help North Lanarkshire’s residents achieve their aims in life by providing sector-leading skills and employability support.
In doing so, we contribute to improving the economy of North Lanarkshire, to reducing poverty and to creating a society where everyone has a good quality of life.
We tailor our support to each individual, helping them recognise and develop their unique capabilities. We support our clients in whatever way they need - skills, advice, help to access financial services, health & wellbeing and support networks to make sure they achieve success in work and life.
Social value is intrinsically linked to the vision of Routes To Work, as we aim to be valued by local people and businesses and respected nationally for the scope, quality, and effectiveness of our services, and for continued innovation in skills and employability support.
By measuring and managing our social value, we can deliver even more impactful employability services and create a fairer world. Within the employability field, social value is an incredibly useful concept and approach to ensuring the marginalised individuals we support are able to shape the services they receive.
From a wider societal perspective, considering social value is an important step to addressing and reducing inequalities. As an employability organisation, we hope to lead the way for other employability charities by evidencing and improving the impact our services have on the economy and society.
We intend to utilise the wealth of resources, tools, events and training opportunities offered to organisational members to upskill our staff in social value.
By joining such a diverse network of social value practitioners, we plan to share our best practices and learn from other organisations committed to social value across the UK.
“Routes To Work are delighted to join the Social Value UK network and look forward to utilising the full range of resources and support available in support of our purpose & charitable objectives of reducing poverty and creating a society where everyone has a good quality of life.”
Robin Turner
Chief Executive, Routes To Work