How our relationship with Wates helped one Social Enterprise train another
ABC Life Support is a Social Enterprise based in Cambridgeshire. We provide Physical and Mental Health First Aid training and bespoke Mental Health Awareness training across the UK. As a Social Enterprise, our mission is to deliver accessible First Aid and Mental Health Training to all. We do this by understanding the lived experience of our learners, recognising the barriers to learning and striving to overcome them. We work with businesses, schools and charities and work to achieve equity in the availability of training.
We have been working with Wates for the last 5 years and in the last 12 months we have been part of their ASSETS (Assisting Social Enterprises to Succeed) programme which enabled us not only to learn how to scale up, but it helped us to build and widen the relationship with Wates especially with the Social Value team.
Wates have always been focused on supporting Social Enterprises within their supply chain. As a Social Enterprise training provider, we found that our courses dovetailed nicely with a number of their community initiatives. One of which was Cook for Good, an amazing Social Enterprise who have built a community kitchen in Kings Cross and a surplus food pantry. Cat Holland, Social Value Manager for London recognised that we could collaborate and offer both Emergency First Aid at Work and Mental Health First Aid training to the team at Cook for Good.
“Working with another Social Enterprise is a gift. Both organisations understand the impact of supporting one another. Knowing that the impact from the skills learnt are going to be felt far and wide as part of the community that Cook for Good has created is a great feeling.”
Danielle Bridge, CEO of ABC Life Support
Being able to deliver this training to the team helped us to work towards our mission, something we couldn’t have done without the relationship with have with Wates. Being able share these lifesaving skills with the Cook for Good team can help them, their families, friends and their community.
There are so many Social Enterprises in the UK doing amazing work and really making a difference. For larger companies like Wates to be able to provide a platform for the work we do, enables us to have a wider impact and support more communities.