PIONEERED AND NURTURED BY PEOPLE
How LAC has grown
LAC has been pioneered and nurtured by a team who have many years of leadership experience in the voluntary and private sectors.
We specialise in legal and social advice, guidance and support. Since inception LAC and its staff have worked on renowned projects throughout their careers with Birmingham City Council, European Support Fund, Home Office Connecting Communities, Age UK, Target Support Fund, Parenting Fund to name a few.
LAC was growing a business and this initiative was in response to the recognition by the volunteer founders that there was an inadequacy of culturally sensitive information, advice and guidance services available to inner city people in Birmingham – especially for British, Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities – who were multiply disadvantaged. The previous premises where LAC was based had been successfully renovated and refurbished by LAC directors with the kind support of the National Lotteries Community Fund and also, the regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands (AWM). Making it a modern, health & safety, Disability Discrimination Act 1995 compliant, accessible offices.
Our current offices are in the heart of the Jewellery Quarter, a thriving and upward coming zone in Birmingham City Centre where there is inward investment.
OUR VISION
We are focused on what our organisation can achieve in the future to help our clients access a better quality life including greater independence for vulnerable groups and better services and facilities for information, advice and guidance and employment training, work placements and tackling unemployment.
We see the realisation of this vision being achieved through working in joint partnerships and within networks e.g. with: Birmingham City Council, Age UK, JobCentre Plus, the Legal Aid Agency, other Third Sector partners, local further education establishments and other relevant agencies, include AWM, Best Consortium, Learning, Training and Employment Pathways (LTEP), to Sarfraz Kayani Foundation (SKF) and LAC-Zaika to name a few.
We have a local partnership employment agreement with Jobcentre Plus since July 2008.
The organisation opportunities has recently augmented its human resources capacity through creating new employment.
Our staff have experience of monitoring and evaluation processes which were been developed to meet the requirements for projects funded by the Government Office for the West Midlands (ESF Objective 3); the Home Office (Connecting Communities programme) and the New Opportunities Fund (ICT Learning Centres) from previous employments. Furthermore our staff has worked according to guidelines of Investor of People and the current and former directors are known to have reached this quality mark in their previous managerial roles.
There is no other organisation providing our range of services within a three miles radius. All the above proposals are driven by user need and demand and reflect the views and aspirations of our service users evidenced through user surveys as well and validated through feedback from our partner agencies
We also help with the young gaining work experience and new skills, as well as help people fill out forms in relation to welfare reform, debt, housing, legal services and have partnerships with Jobcentre Plus.
Jobcentre Plus has enabled LAC with engagement and encouragement with other third sector organisations involvement at steering group level (LAC SG1).
In November 2016, we qualified for the new Disability Confident Level 2 via JCP and we are still currently compliant.
We are already committed to the recruitment and retention of disabled people, previously we successfully held the ‘2 tick symbol’ and are an ‘Equal Opportunities’ employer too.