GET Group update. October 2024.
By Jigna Vyas Gosal, CCVS Development Officer
What is GET?
GET stands for Guidance, Employment and Training and was formed in 1989 with a mission to provide an ‘umbrella’ Infrastructure Group for the adult skills not-for-profit sector of Cambridgeshire.
Over the years membership has grown significantly, becoming more fluid and diverse. It includes voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations (VCSE), statutory bodies, private sector providers and individuals.
The original organisation that delivered GET has closed and the work has been taken over by the Cambridge Council for Voluntary Service (CCVS).
The GET Group meet 4 times a year. Speakers are invited to attend and share relevant organisational updates and information, we often have funding updates to share and update on as well.
A “lack of funding” is a consistent problem across the sector (57% of respondents classified lack of funding as a big issue, State of the Sector Survey 2024.) Recent news has focused on the increase in the number of people out of work due to ill health (Guardian article 2/10/2024). The return to employment and/or education after periods of time for whatever reason can be challenging. This is where the voluntary sector can step in. Supporting individuals on the path to formal employment or education via an informal approach be it via a voluntary role or community group participation. For example, the Work Well project (with the Cambridge and District Citizens Advice Bureaux – CAB and The Abbey people) is working with the GET Group, the voluntary sector, and health (Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Integrated Care Systems – CPIS) and statutory services (Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority – CPCA) to directly tackle these issues collaboratively.
Get Conference 2025
We are excited to announce the return of the GET Group conference on Wednesday 5th March 2025, taking place online. We will be discussing how the voluntary sector can work with organisations offering guidance, education and training . We will also look at how we might put on some supporting training in that same week.
In the past GET ran an in-person celebration event where learners were able to tell their story. As we are now a truly county wide organisation we want to continue this idea but enable people from across Cambridgeshire to contribute. This means we want you to break out your phones and make short videos (a maximum of 2 minutes) that introduce your organisation, and that gets your learners to tell their stories. You can do more than one if you have a number of learner stories but we do suggest you keep them short. We will then arrange for you to submit the videos to us along with a permission form so that we can share these on the GET website and across social media. We will look to show some of these at the event on the 5th March but we will highlight them across that week. We are looking forward to celebrating our groups and organisations’ adult learners, so if you have an adult learner with a story to share and celebrate, please do get in touch with Jigna: jigna@cambridgecvs.org.uk
Click here for more information about the GET Group Network.
We hope to see you at the next meeting.
