Stuart Matson has spent the past 25+ years supporting thousands of people in the North Lanarkshire region through community learning partnership activity programmes with local authorities, colleges, and the third sector. Stuart is now helping transform people’s lives in the employability sector.
Stuart grew up in a home where a strong work ethic was instilled from a young age – his first job was delivering eggs and he then worked in a knitwear factory as a teenager. He went on to study sociology at university, but once he finished, the job pathway wasn’t clear.
“I’d been working part time in sessional youth work which I really enjoyed, so when a friend and -mentor guided me towards a career in CLD, I decided to go back to uni to complete my post-graduate qualification.”
Now Stuart works as Strategic Growth Manager for Routes to Work Ltd, a not-for-profit organisation supporting unemployed and under-employed people back into employment or into better quality jobs.
“It’s not about getting people into the first available job, we very much take a CLD approach.”
“We’ve developed Routes to Change, an assessment tool that looks at the person’s overall health and wellbeing, their finances, skills, confidence and motivation, and support networks, and we’ve had great success. A lot of this is done in partnership with other agencies as well.”
“Routes to Work employ a number of people that don’t come from a CLD background, but the ethos is very similar. We might be working with people for a couple of years with intensive support, looking at the kinds of support networks and challenges clients have as they move through their employability journey.”
While employment is often the route out of poverty, the statistics are scary – Stuart says the number of people who are not working, not looking for work or able to start a job in the UK has risen by more than 800,000 since the start of the pandemic. People who are long term unemployed are more likely to have a shorter life span and have worse health too.
“It’s a really complex thing. We’re having to engage with people to help them realise that the long term benefits of working are linked to things like mental health and physical health. We have a cost of living crisis, and unfortunately, a lot of people are choosing to disengage from employment, so Routes to Work aims to address these challenges.”
Stuart has countless stories about people that he has helped over his career, even one young person that told him a programme had saved his life, after years of suffering from a severe gambling addiction.
“I love seeing positive changes happening in the community – it might be someone who never thought they’d be able to secure employment, or someone who’s made a transformation in their confidence. All of us at Routes to Work get a lot of reward from seeing these stories. Sometimes our work is not just life changing, but it can be lifesaving.”
Stuart’s been a member of the CLD Standards Council for years and speaks highly of the benefits, like tapping into the wealth of knowledge and experience of other members, adding, “Having an agency that advocates for CLD is really important; in times where public finances are stretched more than ever, the case for the value of the partnerships that CLD so effectively bring together has never been stronger.”
To find out more about membership of the CLD Standards Council click here