Watford MP Dean Russell spent the morning at the Job Centre on St Albans Road, meeting with a group of local entrepreneurs navigating the world of self-employment. He attended a similar session in November 2021 and returned to meet some new faces, and also get some progress updates.
The event was organised by the local Department of Work and Pensions team in Watford (DWP) to give an opportunity to self-employed people to network with others in Watford and share tips and best practice as their start to grow their new businesses.
Dean spoke about his experiences of navigating self-employment and explained some of the challenges he had faced in getting set up. He also took part in a Q+A.
After attending the event, Dean said “I really enjoyed having the opportunity to speak again at this event. As I have said previously self-employed individuals are so important to our country and our economy. They take risks to be innovative and it is rarely a smooth or straight forward journey, so I commend them for taking such a leap of faith.
"What the Watford Job Centre staff are doing in terms of providing this support is invaluable, and I would strongly encourage other areas to look into offering something similar as self-employment can be quite lonely so having a point of contact and somewhere to go with questions is really important.”
One attendee said “My head is buzzing with ideas, I am going home to process them and how I can move my business forward with what I have learnt this morning.”
Another added that “I wish the jobcentre had done this years ago, it has been so inspirational.”
