where she was going through the motions rather than pursuing a goal. Jenny had previously worked with the youth offending service, and volunteered with a drug rehabilitation centre so she had a good understanding of the difficulties people faced when trying to get their lives back on track. She realised that the pandemic presented an ideal time to repurpose the business to create a social enterprise, providing training and employment for women in recovery from addiction, or domestic abuse, or who have - helping women break the cycle of experience of the criminal justice system. She recognised that there are many hands-on work opportunities for men, addiction, homelessness and crime. but it can be a much more daunting prospect for women enny Adjene and her husband Emiko founded Hip to find a job, especially as they often have responsibility Hip Hooray in 2014, supplying a range of stylish and for finding childcare. She took advice from a consultant original stationery for weddings, parties and celebrations. about setting up a social enterprise and contacted two Jenny taught herself graphic design and created all the charities: Trevi, an award-winning South West women’s original artwork herself, quickly finding that there was a and children’s charity, which supports women moving on market for interesting designs which could be customised from addiction and abuse, as well as Pause, which helps online at accessible prices. The women break the cycle of having Jenny and her husband then children removed from their care. business was set up to fit around her family’s requirements, and developed a 12-month programme Jenny and her husband then the model was very successful for a 12-month programme to help women get back into the developed a number of years until the start to help women get back into the workplace and support them in of the pandemic. Celebrations workplace and support them in and events disappeared overnight, learning practical skills such as learning practical skills with no certainty of when they packing products, answering the would return, and the business ground to a halt. Jenny has phone, customer service, printing, IT and admin skills. been employing people for the last eight years and was They created two placements, and Trevi and Pause helped relieved when she was able to retain all her staff through them find two candidates, ready for a chance to re-enter the furlough scheme. The forced break gave her time to the workplace. think about how she could move the business forward and The placements have gone well – in fact so well that the she came to the conclusion that she had reached a plateau trainees have become an integral part of the team and
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