Find out more about the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE)

Last month’s EnterpriseUpfront explored Real Help for Communities: Volunteers, Charities and Social Enterprises which pledged £42.5m to provide real help to those who need it most during the economic downturn.

The action plan outlined the investment of £0.5 million in the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) to expand its ‘action-learning’ programme, which will prioritise places for social entrepreneurs operating in deprived communities. We find out more about the SSE. 

Founded in 1997 by Michael Young (Lord Young of Dartington) the SSE provides: training and opportunities for individuals to use their creative and entrepreneurial abilities more fully for social benefit; and aims to support the recruitment of more innovative and capable people into voluntary and other organisations. The SSE Network currently operates in East London, Fife, East Midlands, Belfast, Aston, Cornwall and Liverpool. The network works as a social franchise which sees local independent, community-led agencies becoming licensed to create and run programmes with SSE’s help on design, learning and quality.

The SSE are currently working to develop schools in Cumbria, the Black Country, Yorkshire and the South East. If you are interesting in finding out the status of these developments or are interested in becoming a partner organisation/franchisee for your region visit www.sse.org.uk/contact.php

The SSE will use the 0.5m Government investment to further its regional replication, increasing the number of opportunities for social entrepreneurs to get tailored support and development. 

The SSE approach and belief is that social change is people powered, and that the most valuable assets and resources we have are human ones.

Social entrepreneurs have a desire to make communities better places for those who live in them and are often spurred to identify solutions to address disadvantage and unfulfilled needs by personal experience.  SSE supports entrepreneurial individuals to combine personal and project growth with business skills development.

The SSE year-long ‘action-learning’ programme is tailored to help entrepreneurs explore their: ideas; vision; drive; resourcefulness; and innovation with the emphasis being on learning by doing.

SSE students benefit from a variety of different support interventions and learning methodologies. Some examples of these are:

• Regular Action Learning Sets where students work with a trained facilitator to find useful ways to overcoming the stumbling blocks, dilemmas and other issues that can beset any project.
• Witness Sessions which provide opportunities for students to listen, learn, question and network with social entrepreneurs, real practitioners who share their experience and offer expertise and advice.
• ‘Show-How’ Project Visits where students have the chance to visit a range of established projects to investigate their start-up journey and benefit from their experiences.

For a full break down of programme elements visit: http://www.sse.org.uk/programme.php?sub=ELEMENTS

For further information about the SSE visit http://www.sse.org.uk/index.php