A Lancashire employment project has won a top prize at the Northern Housing Awards after helping people in a borough access training and employment opportunities.

More Positive Together - a project that aims to help unemployed residents lead active lives and improve their job prospects - won the award for resident employment/training initiative of the year at an awards ceremony last week.

Alison Clews, skills and enterprise coordinator at Blackburn's Newground Together, which helps run the project said: “It is an honour for More Positive Together to win this award and a testament to the hard work of the team involved.

"The project is all about the people we support and we are honoured to win this award recognising the project.

“Really listening and working with the people we support through our various projects and initiatives, is at the heart of what we do.

"It is always fantastic to see someone get the job they wanted or improve their personal circumstances and achieve the goals they have set for themselves.”

Led by Active Lancashire and delivered by a number of partners including Newground Together, which is the charitable arm of Together Housing Group, the project is delivered with a person-centred approach.

This means that advisors can identify the barriers an individual may have when trying to get in to work, which can be anything from lack of training to low self-esteem.

Since More Positive Together began in 2017, Newground Together has supported more than 1,000 people in Lancashire with 573 people going into employment, self-employment and training.

You can find out more about Newground Together’s employment projects here.