If you are looking for an apprenticeship Lucy Brown and Emma Widdowson from DurhamWorks recently delivered a webinar on this subject.
If you were unable to attend a recording of the session is available to view below.
Part Time Work Webinar
If you are a student who is looking for part-time work Lucy Brown and Emma Widdowson from DurhamWorks recently delivered a webinar on the subject.
If you were unable to attend a recording of the session is available to view below.
DurhamWorks and the Employability Trust
The Employability Trust supports young people who are struggling to find employment, looking to gain practical work experience, or are daunted by the world of work and don’t know where to start on their progression toward employment.
Rachel Jackson a Progression Coach with DurhamWorks explains more. “We were looking at putting some paid work experience in place for young people who wanted to enter the world of work.
It was negotiated between DurhamWorks and The Employability Trust to put on 10 weeks of paid work experience placements, working at the Employability Trust. This involved working in a warehouse where the young people could get 20 hours of national minimum wage.”
Progression Coach Ross Leyland added, “So for us to offer paid work experience, it has been extremely valuable, especially for the young people, I think it has massively helped. Plus, It’s been really good working with The Employability Trust.”
Issac one of the work placements said “I’ve always wanted to work. Ever since I’ve been in school, I’ve always wanted to work and now I’ve had the opportunity and I’m enjoying it. I’ve got hands-on experience with the whole warehouse.”
Talking about Issac’s experience Bill Marley, CEO & Founder of The Employability Trust said “Oh, it’s been brilliant. Issac told me that people don’t realise how difficult it is sitting in your bedroom all the time. But he’s had an opportunity here to come and do work and he’s loving it!”
Bill added “But that’s the reason why I set up The Employability Trust 15 years ago. I wanted to do, help people who had been less fortunate than others. If a young person comes through the door here every day, we’ll help them get into work, and to date we’ve helped over 480 people.”
Blayne, another of the DurhamWorks placements spoke highly of the entire placement “I am really enjoying it, can’t thank you DurhamWorks enough. I am happy to have a bit money in my pocket and the socialising with other people has helped me a lot.”
Anne Marie Hudspeth, Operations Manager added “The young people are here to learn about employment, but it’s also about lifestyle choices. It’s understanding and making lifestyle choices to enable them to find employment.”
Sportworks Helps Young People Learn Life Skills
A group of care-experienced young people have been benefitting from training delivered by Sportworks with the aim of helping them improve their employment opportunities, while also developing their social skills.
Young people in care might be at a disadvantage later in life, so the course is about bridging some of those gaps and helping make sure that they’ve got the right tools in place to succeed, progress, and build their confidence.
A care-experienced young person has experienced elements of care within their life; they might have been placed into care or been living with other family members and have been removed from their family setting. Some may not be well suited to traditional types of education.
The 14-week course focuses on skills such as communication, adaptability, and teamwork as well as practical elements including CV writing and interview techniques. It also incorporates sport elements, which offer a range of transferable skills (even if a person is not sporty) like working together as a team and developing organisational skills.
Astrid, one of the young people on the course explained, “So on the course we have been learning about life skills, things we can put towards employment and overall, just being better at speaking, better at just being ourselves really!
We’ve been learning things like problem solving, how we can appear more employable, and we’ve been training a little bit for interviews. Every Thursday we get together, we play some sport. It varies from week to week, but the main key to all these sports is in fact teamwork.”
Speaking about the course Rachael Bland Programme Lead North East, North West and Yorkshire at Sportworks said “Obviously, employability skills are great, but we hope they’ve also found a group of other young people who they can connect with, as we all know how lonely this world could be. And even if those connections don’t continue after the programme concludes, they leave equipped with the skills and confidence to bridge those gaps in the future, building meaningful networks both personally and professionally.
And then secondary to that is how we equip them with the technical skills to be more employable, to seek those opportunities, to be prepared, or if they’re not prepared, at least know the processes they need to do to get prepared for something like that in the future. And when that opportunity does come, that they’re able to put the work in to take that challenge on.
Our role has been to help them realise the range of strengths they already possess, while guiding them through areas for development they’ve reflected on along the way. We’ve taken a tailored approach throughout, tailoring the experience to their interests rather than delivering a generic employability programme, and we feel the group have responded really positively to this.”
Struggling in your Job Hunt?
Are you struggling in your job hunt?
If so contact DurhamWorks for free help and support.
DurhamWorks has Employer Engagement Officers who are dedicated to help young people, like you, aged between 16 and 24, and living in County Durham, find work. Our Employer Engagement Officers have contacts in companies throughout County Durham.
Contact us to register.