Social Enterprise Day is a national day to celebrate and promote social enterprise. It is a fantastic opportunity for individual social enterprises to engage with their local communities.

On November 20th, Local Care Direct opened its doors to young people from the Activity Agreement to give them a taste of what life was like behind the scenes of a Social Enterprise organisation.

Local Care Direct provide out of hours support to the NHS. Patients contact call centres where specially trained staff take their details and pass them on to a clinician for assessment. A doctor or a nurse either gives advice over the phone, arranges for the patient to visit one of their Primary Care Centres or,sends a doctor to their home.

Young people from Calderdale and Kirklees were treated to a tour of the organisation and participated in call centre handling and first aid training to gain hands on experience.

The day ended with a Dragon’s Den scenario where the young people pitched their ideas to “dragon’s” made up of the management team and included Chief Executive Emma Wilson.

The dragons were impressed with the young people’s innovative and enterprising ideas.

Alan Whitaker, Communications & Community Relations Manager said: “I was amazed at how much the group changed. By the end of the day you could see they were much more relaxed and confident. They also came up with some great ideas in a short space of time. It really confirmed my belief that through working closely with our local communities you can make a difference.”