News and Events

Work West were delighted to welcome Laura Barbero Switalski to Northern Ireland for the first time for a 2-day workshop in Creative Problem Solving workshop.

At Work West we have trained hundreds of educators, professionals and Students over the past four years through our Design Thinking workshops, promoting break-through innovations and developing creative problem-solving skills.

Laura, a leading trainer, facilitator and coach from Darwin Associates, Buffalo, New York facilitated the group of enterprise, education and impact focused organisations to develop their skills as we continue to support the development of innovation and  creative problem-solving skills.

Visit our Design Thinking page for more on our work in this field.

Calling our tea drinkers and cake munchers as we host our annual Macmillan Coffee Morning to raise funds for this fabulous cause supporting people living with cancer. 

Join us in the main Work West building from 10am this Friday for a cuppa, some cake and a chat. Thanks to the support of our wonderful tenants and business support clients we also have a fantasic raffle including beauty vouchers, a childrens bicycle, Outside In! tshirts, Vintage Satchel Company leather bag, a range of vouchers for local eateries and many more.

Stephen McGarry from Work West with the support of Belfast City Council officially launched the new  Social Enterprise and Cooperative Support Programme at a recent social enterprise breakfast at City Hall.

Speaking at the event were two inspirational social entrepreneurs that shared their journey and indicated the improtance of mentoring in that crucial start up phase.

If you are starting or growing your social business or cooperative find out how we can help by calling 028 90610826 or visit http://belfastcity.gov.uk/business/businessinformation/Social-economy.aspx

Four Community Innovators Programme groups were awarded seed fund support at a special reception hosted at Queen’s University Belfast on 4 September 2019.

Having particiapted in the programme to develop innovative solutions to real world health and social care challenges, the successful projects were; 

• IncredABLE aiming to design an innovative drop-in space for people  with learning disabilities and/or autism using a double-decker bus; 
• Mid  & East Antrim Agewell Partnership aiming to explore and identify new  solutions to the challenge of supporting vulnerable older people; 
• South  Eastern Regional College aiming to explore and develop a new  cross-college approach to addressing the challenge of supporting  students with complex social and health related problems; and 
• Women’s  Aid Armagh Down aiming to explore and develop new approaches to  connecting and engaging with hard to reach service users. 

A fresh cycle of our unique Community Innovators Programme, delivered in partnership with  the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, is now open for applications.  The  Community Innovators programme is free to access and is for voluntary,  community or social enterprise organisations who would like support to  explore and develop new solutions to a real world social, economic or environmental challenge. 

Click for more information on the programme and our scheduled information sessions. 

Work West recently celebrated the end of a successful three year delivery of the Belfast City Council ‘Go Social’ programme supporting new start social enterprises and cooperatives in Belfast, with a showcasing event. An enthusiastic audience filled the vault at the Catalyst Belfast Fintech Hub to hear about the programme achievements from Councillor Carole Howard from Belfast City Council and were inspired by three amazing speakers from Usel, Angel Eyes and Brewgooder (the world’s first clean water beer) outlining their own unique social enterprise journeys. 

We are incredibly proud of what we have delivered with a brilliant team of highly skilled and committed trainers and mentors. Four years ago the board at Work West started to invest in developing a model that would support third sector organisations to develop new solutions to long-standing challenges. Our thinc methodology combines design thinking and creative problem solving approaches and facilitates organisations to think creatively in terms of designing new products and services. With our third sector lagging behind in terms of digital transformation which is impacting upon our ability to be competitive and deliver services there is no time like the present to support organisations to shift their thinking patterns and reimagine new approaches to service delivery.

‘Thinc schools’ by Work West is a no tech, experiential programme underpinned by creative practice and theory which creates a safe space for critical self-reflection allowing for the development of transferrable life skills. The thinc schools team were delighted to have the opportunity to work with the P7 students from St. Oliver Plunkett Primary School during May 2019. 

As the P7 students are preparing for their move into secondary school, the thinc team focused on making this transition as seamless as possible. Over the course of the programme imaginations were stretched, confidence & resilience was built and inventions were created. The students worked diligently through a diverse range of exercises and activities which kept the energy and engagement levels elevated throughout. 

Highlighting the positive results from the programme, feedback from the imagineers included, ‘I learnt that working together can create something incredible’, ‘I loved that the programme helped me to work with other people and helped me to build my confidence’, and ‘I learnt that going to big school is not that scary’.