Remploy Cymru, the biggest provider of specialist employment services to disabled and disadvantaged people in Wales, has appointed a new business development director for Wales.
Helen Northmore, who joins Remploy from the Chartered Institute of Housing, says that building partnerships “is absolutely critical to providing the right support to get disabled people into work. There are lots of organisations doing great work and I hope that we work with them to deliver more positive outcomes for people in Wales.”
Remploy Cymru has supported more than 14,000 disabled and disadvantaged people into life changing employment over the last four years but Helen has no illusions about the scale of the challenges in tackling poverty and worklessness in Wales.
“In parts of Wales we are dealing with generations of worklessness in families and young people leaving education without enough qualifications or training. My job is to support the Welsh government’s focus on increasing employability and skills for disadvantaged and disabled people, working in partnership with organisations across Wales to help more people into work.
“We have a lot of experience of moving disabled and disadvantaged people closer to the labour market by building their confidence and skills and by doing so, their employability,” Helen said.
She said that Remploy nationally had a wealth of experience and knowledge in supporting disabled people as well as access to best practice internationally through the business’s Joint Venture partnership with MAXIMUS, which provides health and human services programmes to governments on four continents.
Helen said: “I personally understand the challenges facing disabled people very well because four years ago I lost 70 per cent of my sight in three weeks. That experience brought home to me how important it is to have a job and being able to do everyday things.”
Thankfully, her sight recovered after a cataract operation and doubled her determination to support people with challenges getting into and staying in work.
Before her role as director for Wales with the Chartered Institute of Housing she was at the Energy Saving Trust Wales for 8 years, and her previous roles include account director at Grayling Wales and deputy head of public affairs at the Federation of Small Businesses Wales. She has been a non-executive director at Groundwork Wales since 2008.
Helen, who lives at Coychurch, Bridgend, is also manager of Team Wales Roller Derby, the Welsh women’s national roller derby team which competed in the Roller Derby World Cup in 2014 where they came 17th out of 30 international teams. She also referees a number of roller derby teams in south Wales.
Picture caption: Helen Northmore, Remploy Cymru Business Development Director
For further information and interview requests, please contact:
David Felton 07803 214682
Debbie Richardson 07977 436079
