At Ginger Nut, our ethos is simply to help people.

Our commitment to supporting learners, businesses, our communities, and our environment goes far beyond the training we offer. Not only do we take a holistic approach in our vital daily work helping people progress in their careers and addressing skills gaps; we actively seek out opportunities to improve access to education for disadvantaged groups, promote mental and physical wellbeing, and support charities across the UK. We are also committed to achieving Net Zero by 2040 and have taken positive steps to reduce our (already low) emissions.

 

The Ginger Nut Project

 

Our project mission is to help provide support and opportunities for those that are care experienced and help them to build a brighter future for themselves.

We offer job shadowing for those that have been in care, to build their confidence while they learn and explore their own potential in a professional setting.

Recently, we attended a Building Better Futures Together event at The University of Essex featuring Fatima Whitbread’s campaign for young care leavers. We hosted a stall, where young people in care and those with care experience could talk about apprenticeships and what support is available to them for accessing vocational training.

You can find out more about The Ginger Nut Project, here.

We also helped establish the Moving on Up Group, working alongside members from the DFE, Yorkshire council, and Amazing Apprenticeships. Together, we work to find solutions to barriers that care leavers face in accessing apprenticeships; we raise awareness about the support and resources available, and promote the care leaver bursary.

 

Charities & Volunteering

 

All our staff can benefit from paid time off for volunteering, that can be used however they wish to contribute to their local communities or favourite charities. This might be working in a charity shop or if they have a neighbour who needs some help around the home, for example, we’ll support that too.

We sponsor a local football team, take part in fundraising initiatives like buying the Mind green ribbon and their mindfulness workbook for everyone in our team, and do Christmas Jumper Day for Save the Children. We also make donations to the chosen charities of all our Governors and learner representatives for their time at our quarterly Governors meetings.

Some of the charities we have donated to this year are Healing Military Minds, Lifeline, Witham Amateur Operatic Society, World Land Trust, The Salvation Army, Save The Children, Great Ormond Street Hospital, and Mind.

 

Promoting Wellbeing

 

The wellbeing of our team and our learners is paramount at Ginger Nut Training.

We continue to invest in the best possible resources and have a wide range of systems and support available for all to utilise.

This includes free membership to a comprehensive health and wellbeing programme to our staff and learners alike, offering support on a wide variety of issues.

We also offer a free neurodiversity assessment, which gives a confidential, personalised report of results. If any additional needs are identified amongst our learners, a full support programme is put in place alongside their qualification. All our staff, from our administrators to tutors receive widely recognised neurodiversity training.

Our apprenticeships and our internal training for staff cover topics such as mental health, safeguarding, internet safety, national and international awareness campaigns, PREVENT, British Values, and lots more.

Additionally, for our staff, we provide a counselling budget that can be used for themselves or their loved ones and increases yearly. This is available for whatever form of counselling they feel would be most beneficial to them and uptake is kept completely confidential.

 

 

Fighting Climate Change

 

At Ginger Nut, we are serious about our environmental responsibilities and have committed to achieving Net Zero by 2040.

As a small business, our Carbon Reduction Plan exceeds what is expected of us, but we believe we all have a part to play in reducing emissions and helping the UK achieve its goal of Net Zero by 2050.

Our Carbon Reduction Plan is reviewed yearly and published here.