How Employment Support Helped Lily Rebuild Her Confidence and Find Purpose in Work

• Lily benefited from personalised health and wellbeing support during one of the most challenging periods in her life.
• With guidance from her employment specialist, Lisa, she slowly rebuilt her confidence and found work that matched her strengths and health requirements.
• Marking International Women’s Day, Lily’s journey highlights the power of women supporting women.

International Women’s Day celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women, all while promoting gender equality worldwide.

This year’s theme is ‘give to gain’, which highlights the power of reciprocity and support – two attributes that the Growth Company, as a social enterprise, tries to prioritise.

So, to mark the occasion, we wanted to share the Lily and Lisa’s story.

Looking for help

When Lily first came to the Growth Company, she was looking for help during one of the most overwhelming and isolating periods of her life.

She was suffering from depression, anxiety, and a series of ongoing health issues, which made it difficult for her to stay in work.  

“I felt completely stuck,” Lily recalls. “Every day felt like I was sinking a little deeper. I genuinely couldn’t see a way forward.”

However, when she began working with her assigned employment specialist, Lisa, things began to change.

Health and wellbeing support

“Lisa saw my potential long before I could,” Lily says. “While I could only see the things going wrong, she focused on my strengths. She never pushed me faster than I could manage, and she never judged me.”

Lily soon began rebuilding her confidence step-by-step, exploring job options that suited her abilities and accommodated her health needs.

“For the first time in years, I felt like someone believed in me,” she says. “And through Lisa’s belief, I began to believe in myself again.”

A new job at the Growth Company

Lily found herself increasingly drawn to roles that recognised her lived experience of mental illness as an asset that could help others, rather than a barrier to her own ambitions.

Eventually, with Lisa’s guidance, she secured a role at the Growth Company as a wellbeing navigator.

“It’s a job that doesn’t just accommodate my wellbeing; it values it,” Lily observes. “I feel a sense of purpose again. And I get to use my story to support people who feel lost in the same way I once did.”

Women helping women

Lily believes her experience, and the part Lisa played in it, says a lot about the importance of the message represented by International Women’s Day: “This journey showed me what can happen when women truly uplift one another.”

The Growth Company

The Growth Company is an award-winning social enterprise with a 35-year history of enabling growth, creating jobs, and improving lives. We help people and businesses to develop, grow, and succeed through a range of employment, skills, and business support services. We provide employment, justice, and health services across the North of England and beyond.

Find out more about our health and wellbeing support.