{"id":561,"date":"2024-10-09T09:22:06","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T09:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/?p=561"},"modified":"2025-12-16T16:40:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T16:40:03","slug":"how-a-one-time-match-became-a-thriving-partnership-the-hive-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/index.php\/2024\/10\/09\/how-a-one-time-match-became-a-thriving-partnership-the-hive-college\/","title":{"rendered":"How a one-time match became a thriving partnership: The Hive College"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>We recently heard from <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ruth-martin-the-hive-college?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_miniProfile%3AACoAAAxJXHcBI95ABZK5LmdQP_NpxZ9ydQ2moOA&amp;lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_search_srp_all%3BeoYYhPztShixaykG5SOweg%3D%3D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Ruth Martin<\/em><\/a><em>, work placement coordinator at The Hive College, about how Match My Project has been helping her source opportunities for young people with disabilities in Birmingham.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-style-default\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_20230208_152821-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Young people in Birmingham.\" class=\"wp-image-562\" srcset=\"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_20230208_152821-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_20230208_152821-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_20230208_152821-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_20230208_152821-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_20230208_152821-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_20230208_152821-1568x1176.jpg 1568w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m Ruth, I&#8217;m from The Hive College. We are an outstanding, according to Ofsted (and ourselves), college in Erdington North Birmingham. We offer courses for young people with disabilities, and that&#8217;s right across the spectrum. So we have some very complex learners, right the way through to those with more mild to moderate conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And my role there is to get our learners into jobs. <strong>Did you know that less than six per cent of, this is in the UK, people with disabilities are in employment, and that is 4.8 per cent in Birmingham.<\/strong> So if that doesn&#8217;t make you uncomfortable and desperate to do something about it, then you can stop reading now! So how can you do something about it? And why Match My Project?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I was introduced to Match My Project by a contact completely by fluke a couple of years ago. Didn&#8217;t really know what it was, gave it a go. Very, very simple and very quick to fill out. I think I probably spent a maximum of half an hour on there, and kind of thought nothing of it, but incredibly we got matched with an organisation with a company called Kier Highways. You might have noticed them at number one on the leaderboard in Birmingham and that&#8217;s because of what they have delivered.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Voluntary sector organisations have asked&nbsp; about longevity before and we are still very close partners with Kier. Not only did they deliver and provide an amazing work opportunity, a paid position for one of our learners, it\u2019s super easy to use, super quick and I got this fantastic relationship from Kier Highways out of it. So they have delivered first aid training to some of our learners. They&#8217;ve delivered vehicle marshalling training. They have had our groups go round their stores and their centre in Aston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve had multiple work experience students. We&#8217;ve probably had about 10 students that have gone to them for long term work, experience opportunities. They have donated money &#8211; they&#8217;ve bought us three quarters of a car &#8211; \u00a315,000 &#8211; in the last year. And most incredibly, one of their Social Value managers is now on our board of trustees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-82519d59612a3a51bb0ea9757b8e5541\" style=\"color:#16437c\"><strong>So in terms of longevity, in terms of commitment, in terms of relationship, I hope that gives you a little flavour of the power that Match My Project can have. Such a very simple, very basic, low cost, low input from this side of the fence. But massive, massive what we&#8217;ve received back.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-elements-04ca55c5a7771167fb5d7272afc774d4\" style=\"color:#25363f;background-color:#f4f4f4\"><em>Community organisations and businesses in Birmingham can sign up to Match My Project <a href=\"https:\/\/matchmyproject.org\/birmingham\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/matchmyproject.org\/birmingham\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We recently heard from Ruth Martin, work placement coordinator at The Hive College, about how Match My Project has been helping her source opportunities for young people with disabilities in Birmingham. I&#8217;m Ruth, I&#8217;m from The Hive College. We are an outstanding, according to Ofsted (and ourselves), college in Erdington North Birmingham. We offer courses [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jobs-training","category-testimonial","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":804,"href":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions\/804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journal.matchmyproject.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}