The Aspire Workshop provides training services for local people giving them the chance to upgrade and renew their skills and more opportunities to get sustainable work or to get closer to the labour market.

Skills enhancement

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Traditional forms of training can let people down, if they fail to make the adjustments necessary to take account of particular literacy, numeracy and IT needs or of particular disabilities. We are committed to upgrading the skills of our workforce and of local people through hands-on experience and internal and external training that wraps round this experience.

Co-design and development

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Training removed from the job sometimes teaches in isolation, leaving a huge gap between theory and the practical challenges of the working day. So our Aspire workshop which delivers training for both our employees and local people, now co-designs training programmes around the practical elements of a working day whatever the challenge.

Training innovation

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Aspire constantly innovates in training and services, challenging ourselves to achieve better results with the people with whom we work.We don’t do theatre style training. Getting user involvement and participation in the development of training is an essential part of what we do. Listening to what people find hard is critical to this.

Aspire Standards and Challenges

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At work, on the job training and bite-sized chunks of training is often our preferred approach for people who may not be used to the formality of college. Each of our employees has their own training and development plan linked to our standards. Our Aspire Standards have been compiled by a team of our workers. You can read about them here Our external challenges put people to the practical test of planning and doing.

Employment tasters and training

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For some people, a gap in their working years can be a major obstruction to getting work. Our Aspire employment tasters give people the chance to get work experience, while supporting them in local training and development. We don’t replace jobs with volunteers, but we do provide volunteering and work experience as part of a measured path of progress and in return for free training.

Estates and home management

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The Aspire workshop, our training Academy, runs training throughout the year, some of which are open to the community. This includes training on health and safety, first aid, cleaning and specialist courses in grounds maintenance including use of chainsaw, working at heights and use of power machinery; carrying out estates inspections and checking for health and safety risks; and passing a series of Aspire Challenge tests.