Claire Cook Social Enterprise Consultant | Just another WordPress site

Claire Cook is a social entrepreneur with a passion for social change, she is a successful social entrepreneur in her own right having set up Employability Solutions Ltd, her own successful social enterprise providing education to young people excluded from main stream education.

As a social entrepreneur you can enjoy the competitive playing field of the traditional business world but with the advantage of being able to reinvest your profits into stuff that simply makes life better for people.

Why would you not WANT TO BE A SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR.

11391191_916269901765555_8928615500895813475_n

Employability Solutions LTd

I LOVE my job and I LOVE every young person who gifts us with the privilege of helping them become the best they can be…

Clair Cook
Social Entrepreneur

Born out of a need to tackle the nation’s growing social problem of rising youth unemployment, disengagement and an increase in reports of poor mental health amongst young people who experience long term unemployment, rejection and setbacks, we set about a journey to transform young lives and repair damaged communities through an innovative approach to delivering holistic education, skills and pre-employment training.

We are currently delivering a range of educational services on behalf of local authorities, education providers and community organisations and are catering for 72 young people across two sites in Liverpool and West Yorkshire.

I LOVE my job and I LOVE every young person who gifts us with the privilege of helping them become the best they can be…

My Passions

I am passionate about education and in particular personalised education that meets the real needs of those young people who don’t fit in to the mainstream.

My kids. Two beautiful creative, talented, lively and quirky individuals. Lucy who is ten and Samuel who is 5. We love to travel and visit new places.

My Biggest Challenge

My biggest challenge in becoming a social entrepreneur was doing it without any money. The temptation to get a regular job was there, especially as a single mum with a mortgage to pay. But I realised that if not now, when?…. I stuck to my guns, tightened my belt & lived a frugal existence for twelve months….
More challenges were presented when it came to deciding where to be ourselves particularly as we were targeting young people who were gang affiliated nd struggled to travel. So, we didn’t , instead we purchased a pop up tent and took our office . Classroom to the community, popping up in hot spot places, in times and in locations ….. This really worked for us nd it helped us to become known to the community … The no affilition to a particular ward or area became a model which he helped our business to grow rapidly in the past three years taking the turn over from 44k in yr to 400k in year three…

My Experience

With 15 years’ experience designing, delivering and managing externally funded programmes tackling worklessness and skills, I bring passion, commitment and experience to my social organisation.
Responsible for building, leading and motivating teams of staff, volunteers, sub-contractors and delivery partners, I have been responsible for ensuring over 2000 people have successfully moved into sustainable employment within the last decade.

Designing and structuring service, recruiting staff and producing delivery models for contractual compliance of SFA contracts.
Negotiating sub-contracts with suppliers and writing and issuing contracts.
Delivering team training / development / supervisions
Managing risk of failure by developing robust performance management and data collection systems
Reporting performance to CEO and Board of Directors
Motivating and leading teams
Re-profiling and re-negotiating contractual terms to under / over performing suppliers in line with OCT rules.
Ensuring high quality service delivered to end user
Audit coordination (internal and external)
Celebrating success and praising staff
Marketing and Business Development Activity
BID writing
Strategic networking and relationship management

Lets talk Social enterprise

As a fellow of the School of Social Entrepreneurs, Claire is part of an Global network of entrepreneurs who believe in working together, sharing best practise, supporting innovation and changing the world in which we live.

The School for Social Entrepreneurs empowers people from all backgrounds to create social change.