Highland charity's cafe strategy likened to three-legged stool
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WHEN ill health forced Isobel Grigor to take a two year break from work, her return to employment taught her two valuable lessons.
Thanks to her qualifications and academic research background, Isobel was able to rebuild her career.
"This showed me qualifications are very important, but ultimately what matters most is believing that you can succeed and keeping going when things are difficult," she said.
Which explains why she is so passionate about her work as chief executive of the Calman Trust, the Highland charity aimed at helping young people find their feet in life and the jobs market — no matter how difficult their personal background.
In Inverness the most high profile element of the Calman Trust’s work is Artysans cafe on Strothers Lane, which opened in December.
Though classed as a social enterprise business, Isobel points out that to survive Artysans must offer as good a service as any commercial cafe.
"We look at our approach like a three legged-stool," she said.
"The main issues for us are quality of service to the customer, the training experience for our clients and the income we generate. We have to be good at all three."
Set up in 1998 to work with homeless young people in Easter Ross, the Calman Trust now works with young people from Nairn to Golspie. From just four young people helped by the new charity a dozen years ago, the present day Calman Trust now has 300 on its books.
The focus has also changed from dealing with young people who were already homeless to a more preventative strategy.
"It quickly became very clear that if you could enable the young person to avoid these difficulties, it would be much better for them," Isobel explained.
"There’s a great tendency for services to react to difficulty, but by that point, other services like the schools already knew there was a likelihood they could get into difficulties."
Which is why the Calman Trust now works with people as young as 14, offering such services as support with housing needs, advice on leaving home and help to improve literacy skills. A key element though is preparing young people for work.
All the young people who work with the Calman Trust are given an apprenticeship, whether at Artysans, the cafe at the Culduthel Christian Centre which provides a first step towards the city centre business, its commercial workwear business, printing business or elsewhere.
Greatest emphasis is placed on the hospitality sector, not just because it offers the opportunity to generate income, but because the importance of tourism to the area’s economy means the skills learnt are easily transferable to the wider Highland jobs market.
"By the time they leave they have qualifications, a track record and experience they can show to a new employer," Isobel pointed out.
"Support for independent living is available all the time so they can deal with their home circumstances. If you have difficulties in your home life, that can affect you turning up at work on time."
Most of the young people working with the Calman Trust are under 20 with a rough upper age limit of 25.
"The main thing that links the young people we work with is that they have never made a personal connection between their experience of education and the demands they are going to experience in the future," Isobel added.
"They don’t have a sense of a future plan. They think other people do things to them, not that they decide for themselves. They have to think: I am going to do something — what will it be?"
Isobel has been involved with the Calman Trust since its earliest days, originally as a consultant.
A PhD graduate in social administration from Edinburgh University, she has 20 years experience as an independent consultant working with voluntary and public sector bodies in the north of Scotland. These days, however, she devotes herself full-time to the Calman Trust.
"I used to work totally as an independent consultant, but I ended up doing this — you wouldn’t want to know how many hours a week," she smiled.
"For me, I couldn’t dream of a job that would suit me better."
It also suits her to be back in her native Black Isle.
"I’m always working by about 6am. I work at home and I can come in when the roads are quieter," she added.
"It’s the best time of day too. It’s not been a great summer, but the early mornings have been glorious."
While still living in Edinburgh, Isobel worked for the Church of Scotland before returning to the Highlands in the mid-1980s and confirmed that there is a religious influence on her work with the Calman Trust.
"I come from a faith position that drives me to enable other people to have the best in life that they can and also be of service to others," she said.
"That’s pretty core to my personality. My politics are left of centre so they fit with that impulse pretty comfortably."
For Isobel, however, it is not just an issue of religion, but resources.
"It’s waste," she said.
"Think of the young person who sits at home and feels worthless compared with the person who enjoys life and finds something they can contribute to. That’s the same person, given different opportunities.
"That’s partly about what they do, but also about the relationships that they develop. A lot of young people are very socially isolated and so they flounder when they are in a working relationship.
"When you talk to the young people and ask them what difference the Calman Trust has made, often they will say they feel like a new person. That’s because they talk to people more and like themselves more.
"Every now and then you get a smile from a young person that tells you that they have moved miles from the fear and resentment they experienced before."
Last month Isobel was chosen by Fergus Ewing, the MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber as his local hero and invited her to Edinburgh to mark the opening of the fourth session of the Scottish Parliament.
Isobel took part in the "riding" of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, joining 1500 other prominent Scots, schoolchildren, parliamentarians, religious leaders and guests from public life in parading towards the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood where the Queen addressed newly elected MSPs and guests.
"That came completely out of the blue," Isobel revealed.
"There were three or four parts of the procession. You had terrific music, but I was in a group all of us having done something in the community which was being recognised by their individual MSP.
"I’m not given to public performance, but it was lovely to see all those people from all walks of life sitting down and eating together. I think there was something particularly Scottish about that."
Isobel’s work with the Calman Trust is far from done. As well as overseeing plans for the trust’s own hotel she also wants to see the charity expanding its reach to Easter Ross where the charity began.
"In terms of our business model, the Highlands is a very small market, so we have to adapt it because we wouldn’t want to duplicate services," she
explained. "We have to turn down applicants from Invergordon and Alness for Artysans, but we would love to provide the same service in those areas."
