IDENTICAL twins have been offered permanent jobs by their housing association employer which is investing £400,000 to keep on staff that were employed on temporary contracts.

Sovereign, a housing association with 5,000 homes across Dorset, will offer the life-changing roles in a unique extension to the government’s Kickstart scheme.

It will offer contract extensions or award permanent roles to those completing the scheme thanks to an innovative suggestion from the organisations Employment & Training team.

Twins Chloe and Charlotte Northover, who both work out of Sovereign’s Blandford office, had their roles extended along with eight other young people.

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Chloe, 19, has now gained a permanent job as a gas service coordinator, with Charlotte working as a money and digital admin assistant.

Chloe shared her happiness at the opportunity: “When I came back after Christmas, I moved into the gas team in a permanent role and now I’m working full time for the gas service coordinator team.

“I was just in the first stages of my extension when the opportunity came up – I’m so pleased to have got a permanent job thanks to Kickstart.”

Charlotte agrees and admits that when she left school she had her sights set on working in care, hoping to make a difference in peoples lives and seeing the smile on their faces.

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She said: “In the long term I realised that a hands on care role wasn’t for me. I wanted to find another way that I could help people.

“Kickstart has given me a great understanding of what goes on behind the scenes of a large social landlord, where supporting people with their money and digital needs is just one of the many things that Sovereign does.”

Charlotte’s manager, Kimberley Barrow, Money and Digital Manager, loves having Charlotte on the team.

She said: “It’s been an amazing opportunity to be part of Charlottes journey into work and to see how she has developed in the first six months of the role, we didn’t hesitate in asking Charlotte to stay on longer in her role.

“It's also been great getting to know Chloe and fantastic that they’ve both chosen Sovereign to develop their careers. I only wish they were triplets so we could have had even more of the enthusiasm and vitality that Charlotte and Chloe bring here at Sovereign!”

The Kickstart scheme, which launched in September 2020, is designed to support 18-24 year olds on Universal Credit into the world of work, often starting out in jobs they might not have considered before and preventing them from becoming long-term unemployed.

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