As ‘just a kid’ from Toxteth, Sara has worked hard for years across the Northwest supporting those marginalised from society, last year alone the organisation she founded Rise Construction Framework (Rise) supported over 9000 individuals.
Sara is a winner of a Kings Award for Enterprise 2024 for promoting opportunity through social mobility where she picked up 1 of only 8 of these prestigious national awards.
Sara has 27yrs experience leading across public, private and 3rd sector organisations and started her career with DWP where she spent 17yrs delivering and implementing government policies that supported 1000’s of people into employment.
Sara went on to work within Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service where, in addition to managing operational Fire Stations and Fire Fighters she led on community intervention and prevention initiatives including mentoring young women at risk of exclusion from education, the creation of specialist outreach teams to tackle youth crime, the creation of fire prevention educational workshops in HMP Style and the delivery of Liverpool’s super zone The Fire Fit Hub (Fire Fit) which supported 1000’s of young people from across 50 different nationalities.
Motivated by a desire to reach the most vulnerable and marginalised members of society and raise their living standards Sara established Rise 2015. Rise is a purpose driven construction framework providing procurement services to the public sector. With a mission of tackling deprivation and poverty Rise invests profits into the VCSE sector to fund community intervention and prevention services including domestic violence services, citizens advice services and mental health & wellbeing services. Investing in services that affect one of the 7 domains of deprivation 2025 Rise has impacted on 1000’s of lives across the Northwest and 2015 will mark its 10th anniversary,
In 2020 Rise founded Thrive; looking and feeling like a coffee shop Thrive is a dedicated safe space for care leavers and young people furthest from the job market. Thrive provides intensive job search support for young people whilst connecting them to the vital wrap around services they need to live happy, safe and fulfilling lives. Thrive has transformed the lives of 100’s of young people by lifting their aspirations and supporting them in overcoming complex barriers to employment.
This year Rise & Thrive will be launching their ‘Raise Up’ social mobility and youth summit. Raise Up is an intergenerational summit educating businesses about the importance of social mobility, calling for action to create work experience opportunities and showcasing a variety of careers to lift young people’s aspirations.
Sara feels this nomination is very much for the team at Thrive rather than her work, as volunteer Director, the day to day support for young people is delivered by Kerry, Alex, Amy along with DWP colleagues Franz and Rose and therefore this recognition is very much their recognition.
