WM Morrison Darlington Enterprise Trust

Charity Details

Full Name: The W M Morrison Darlington Enterprise Trust
Field:  Enterprise, Skills and Economic Development
Founded: 1995
Headquarters: Darlington, DL1 4PJ
Charity No: 1135126

History and Activities

The WM Morrison Darlington Enterprise Trust was founded in 1995 at the initiative of Sir Kenneth Morrison CBE (1931 -2017) to support small businesses in the area. However, as Sir Ken’s involvement receded, the charity re-positioned itself as a skills development and employment readiness training organization focused upon young people. The need for such an organization has grown over the last twenty years not diminished. A study conducted by Loughborough University for the Child Poverty Action Group found that youth unemployment in Darlington has been consistently above the national average since the economic crisis of 2008.

The trust is a highly professional organization with a reputation for high standards of quality and efficiency. It operates the Morton Park conference and training centre and ploughs the profits back into the employment support service. Contracts from local authorities form another source of revenue. Grants from charitable trusts and foundations like the Henry Smith Charity and the County Durham Community Foundation have become more numerous in recent years, allowing the charity to expand the scale and range of services it provides. Its MoneyWorks project, for example, which is supported by Big Lottery funding and delivered in partnership with the Darlington Credit Union, is set to deliver financial coaching sessions for 330 newly employed and would-be employed young people over a three year period. The bread-and-butter task remains of ensuring that young people put their best foot forward in the jobs market by having a well-presented CV, good information technology skills, interpersonal and presentational skills, and the focus needed to persuade employers of their ability to hit the ground running if hired. This is demanding work, given that many of the young people concerned suffer from “low expectations and aspirations, lack of confidence and self-esteem, mental health and wellbeing issues, debt and finance, drug and alcohol abuse, relationship breakdown, and [trying] family issues.” This necessitates the provision in the most difficult cases of holistic support tailored to the individual. It is a testimony to the effectiveness of the trust’s methods that of 145 16 to 18-year-olds who began a two-year programme in August 2015 funded by the Henry Smith Charity 103 progressed into education, employment or training.

Vital Statistics (year to 31/03/2017)

Website
http://www.morrisontrust.org.uk/

References