Wanted! Men’s Ideas for a Working Future

South Eastern Regional College has collaborated with other public bodies to develop a new platform to explore how best to support people whose employment has suffered the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The website is particularly targeting men in Newry Mourne and Down District Council area and asks for their ideas on what can help them get jobs in the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the economic landscape with many jobs lost, some possibly forever.  New opportunities will arise but people seeking work will often need support to build new skills for new jobs.

The Living Well Together ‘What Works for Men?’ website is a new online resource asking men in Newry, Mourne and Down what could help, or what has helped them get back into work.

Launching the site in the week of International Men’s Day, Community Planning Partnership Chairperson Róisín Coulter said, “We want to hear from men. We would like feedback from men’s experience about the things which have been of most benefit to them in getting them back to work.  We hope to create more effective support across the range of organisations that are there to help.  We are targeting men in this project because men don’t often make as much use of the support available.  With their help we want to create support more relevant to men’s needs.”

The Living Well Together ‘What Works for Men?’ website is open now: www.livingwelltogethernmd.org  and will be available until mid-December 2020.  Anyone resident in Newry Mourne and Down can register on the site and give their ideas, share their experience, hear others’ stories, complete a survey or join a discussion forum on what can help.

The ‘What Works for Men?’ project is an initiative of the Newry Mourne and Down Community Planning Partnership and the Partnership aims to develop further online community engagement with panels of citizens across the district in the future. Besides SERC, other partners in the What Works for Men? initiative are Southern Regional College, The Development Trusts NI, the Community Foundation NI and the County Down Rural Network.

The project is supported by the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland through the Civic Innovation Fund.     

For further information contact:

David Patterson, Head of Community Planning, NMDDC

Mobile:  07971 567894

Email:  david.patterson@nmanddd.org

Caption : Launching the new website in Downpatrick are: Róisín Coulter, Community Planning Partnership Chairperson and Director of Planning, Performance and Informatics at South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust; Nicholas McCrickard, Manager, County Down Rural Community Network;  David Patterson, Head of Community Planning, Newry Mourne and Down District Council.