Launched in 2019 to deliver on City & Guild’s purpose, the City & Guilds Foundation provides opportunities in skills and work, supporting everyone to succeed no matter who they are or where they come from.

The CIPD Trust is working with the City & Guilds Foundation on two projects. With funding provided by the Foundation, we are supporting refugees by offering access to CIPD qualifications and providing mentoring support around developing skills, navigating the workplace and wider career aspirations.

We are also working with the City & Guilds Foundation supporting women back into work as they leave the prison system and develop their lives and careers beyond the gates. Working initially with HMP Styal, we are providing mentoring support to help women find work opportunities and go on to thrive in secure employment. Find out more about our ‘Beyond the Gates‘ mentoring programme.

RefuAid  provides people who have been forced to flee their homes with tailored financial support to build independent and dignified lives.

We are working with RefuAid to tackle unemployment rates for refugees. We do this by providing support, mentoring and bursaries to refugees with the right to work in the UK and by supporting employers to recruit and retain refugees into employment.

Breaking Barriers is a specialist refugee employment charity. Enabling refugees to build new lives. Step by step. They provide refugees with one-to-one advice and guidance, education, and training into meaningful employment. 

We are working with Breaking Barriers to tackle unemployment rates for refugees. We do this by providing support and mentoring with the right to work in the UK and by supporting employers to recruit and retain refugees into employment.

Offploy works with those facing adversity, often providing second chances and transforming lives, in order to create a more accessible world.

We are working with Offploy providing mentoring support to help people with convictions to re-enter the workplace successfully. Mentors provide advice and support and work with mentees to build their skills and confidence in order to succeed in the workplace.

St Giles Trust helps people held back by poverty, unemployment, the criminal justice system, homelessness, exploitation and abuse to build a positive future.

The CIPD Trust is partnering with St Giles Trust on a project to support people with lived experience of the criminal justice system to re-enter the workplace and develop in existing roles. We do this through mentoring, using the unique skillset of our people professional members.

New Futures Network is a specialist part of HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), which attracts and supports employers to work with prisons in England and Wales.

The CIPD Trust has partnered up with the New Futures Network (NFN) to increase the number of people professionals on Employment Advisory Boards in prisons. We will work together to identify and engage senior people professionals to join employment advisory boards, where HR expertise is currently lacking. 

Through our work with NFN, we will also be looking for skilled HR professionals who have some experience working with prisons or the criminal justice space to volunteer as a mentor to a Prison Employment Lead (PEL). PELs are responsible for driving the employment strategy for the prison, working with employers and prisoners to match people to suitable jobs, which is a key factor in reducing reoffending.

Career Returners is a purpose-led consulting, coaching and community organisation, specialising in the enablement of professionals who have taken a long career break to return to fulfilling work. They have partnered with over 180 leading organisations to design, promote, manage and support returner programmes. A social business, their mission is to remove the career break penalty and make the working world fairer and more inclusive. Career Returners run the pay-if-you-can Career Returners Community, a global network providing support, advice, events and peer-to-peer connection. 

The CIPD Trust is partnering with Career Returners to provide mentoring support to their 9,500 returner Community members. 

Ten2Two is a specialist recruitment and consulting business dedicated to part-time and flexible working. Since 2007, they’ve helped parents and career returners find fulfilling, flexible roles, recognising that career breaks enhance professional skills. They also design Returner Programmes and offer free resources to support returners back to work. The CIPD Trust is partnering with Ten2Two to offering their community of returners access to the Bridging the Gap mentoring programme, helping them rebuild confidence and restart their careers.