Case Study

Acumen Community Buildings

Acumen Community Buildings, a Community Interest Company based in Houghton-Le-Spring recruited BA (Hons) English Literature graduate, Kate Jowsey as an Activities and Events Coordinator who has most notably helped to organise the 800-year-old festival Houghton Feast.

Kate told us of her internship experience so far, "The scheme has helped me move from a job that was repetitive and lacked challenge, to this role that is definitely more interesting and mentally exercising. The internship was a huge opportunity for me also as it was a positive change of scenery, an increase in earnings, and has offered me a wide range of training, including a level 3 Teaching and Education Award that I am currently undertaking online."

Kate Welch, Chief Executive of Acumen Community Buildings said:

“The scheme has been helpful for us in terms of growing our capacity as a fairly new company. It brings resources ahead of income to help us grow in terms of reach and impact as well as turnover.

We have a young team who are mainly graduates themselves. Kate has settled in extremely well as part of the small team at Acumen Community Buildings. She has already taken a large part in running a huge event of the Houghton Feast Parade.”

Kate Jowsey graduate and Kate Welch CEO of Acumen standing in front of a noticeboard

Graduate Internship Scheme Project Manager, Laura Foster says: “It’s been a well-documented difficult and uncertain time for businesses over the last couple of years, and our project has helped many SMEs and CICs in a really practical way with help towards graduate’s salary costs”.

Concluding in November 2022, the internship scheme saw 250 graduates successfully placed into full-time roles within growing SMEs, earning an average salary of £20,000.