Company: Pathways Community Interest Company
Company Description: Pathways Community Interest Company seeks to make happier, healthier lives. Founded in 2006 by Yvonne Clarke Pathways CIC employs 19 people and has gained European recognition for its model of best practice for supporting unemployed people into work and supporting people in work with health conditions to be retained in employment.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Female Executive of the Year – Government or Non-Profit –11 to 2,500 Employees

Nomination Title: Yvonne Clarke, Managing Director

Describe for the judges the activities and accomplishments of the nominated executive since the beginning of July last year (up to 525 words):

In the UK annually over 130 million days are lost to sickness absence with a cost to the economy of £15 billion. Yvonne Clarke believes keeping people of working age in jobs is one of the most valuable ways of reducing health inequalities which result from unemployment.

Yvonne Clarke is a founder member of Pathways CIC, and Managing Director. Under Yvonne’s direction, Pathways is a multi-award winning not for profit organisation. Pathways mission is to improve health and wellbeing.

Yvonne believes is to make the most impact to the communities Pathways serves, Pathways needs to operate differently than traditional services. Yvonne has ensured Pathways does this by crossing organizational boundaries, providing holistic services to meet clients’ biological, psychological and social needs. In order to meet the often complex and multifaceted needs of people, Pathways services are delivered in a multifaceted way, which are sequenced through negotiation with clients, that enable Pathways clients to take control of their lives and bring about lasting change. Caring and empowering of people not only extends to Pathways clients but to Pathways staff also. As a consequence Pathways staff drive organizational growth and efficiencies with turnover and sickness absence being 50% below national average levels.

Yvonne has ensured Pathways services not only directly benefit individuals but show fiscal and wider economic benefits too. The cost benefit analysis for July 2013-July 2014 shows that for every pound spent with Pathways, Pathways saves the public purse £19.

Whilst Pathways is a small organisation with 19 employees, Yvonne has led Pathways to be recognised as a leader with regard to work and health. In March 2014, Pathways, as partners within Health, Work and Wellbeing Group, became voluntary sector strategic partners to Department of Health, NHS England and Public Health England.

Yvonne has led a national fit for work pilot supporting people in the early stages of sickness absence due to health conditions to return to work more quickly than without interventions. What Yvonne led the design of, was a holistic multi-faceted menu of fst access support including:

- Bio-psychosocial assessment
- Advice and support for social concerns including finance, housing, relationships, responsibilities etc
- Occupational management interventions including workplace risk factor assessment and modification
- Lifestyle support, mental wellbeing, self care, addictive behaviours
- human resources management.
- Access to clinical services eg physiotherapy, psychology

The holistic model, not only focused on the individual off sick, but critically joined up the triangle’ of employers, employees, and GPs/health professionals in tackling sickness absence. This is one of the first working models tackling the burden of sickness absence that includes GPs and primary care in the UK.

The service has been nationally evaluated with results being fedback to UK Government. The learning from the pilot has been used to inform the development of the Health and Work Service being rolled out across the UK by April 2015. Yvonne has worked with a national prime to develop the bid and Pathways is part of the delivery supply chain. This will bring in an additional revenue of £12m over 5 years for Pathways against a current annual turnover of £600k.

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Provide a brief biography of the nominated executive (up to 125 words):

Yvonne Clarke, as Managing Director of Pathways CIC, strives to reduce inequalities through promoting positive relationships between Health and Work.

Having survived domestic abuse and suffering mental health problems as a result, Yvonne used learning and employment as a platform as a means of overcoming the challenges. Retaining employment was a challenge because she struggled to find the right services at the right time, however, she knew if she fell out of employment this would put her and her young daughter in poverty and impact on her mental health still further. She formed Pathways as a way to make a difference to others, by delivering services people need at the time they are required, and empowering them to move their own lives forward.