ESTHER, FROM BRADFORD:

Esther is now an ambassador for Smart Works Leeds, as well as a client. She has three children and had been unemployed for most of seven years, having previously worked for McDonald’s, Asda, as a tutor and as a children’s entertainer. She now has a job working for an agency that supplies the NHS.

“Some charities want you to be pathetic and poor, and it’s very patronising,” she said. “I don’t want people to pity me. Yes, I might need help. The lady who dressed me treated me like a person, not like a disadvantaged minority. I felt valued.

“There are charities that will see you for who you are and can be a bridge, not just a ladder, leading from where you are now to where you want to be. I want people to feel that warmth and that support.”