Kevin Wright

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.”

Are you struggling in your job hunt?

If so contact DurhamWorks for free help and support.

Transcript.pdf

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.

Liam Pritchard was looking for a vacancy as a farm hand, With the support of DurhamWorks he managed to secure an interview, and then a work trial at Sprucely Farm in Sedgefield.

Michele Atkinson, an Employer Engagement Officer at DurhamWorks first met with Liam in June 2025. Liam had registered with DurhamWorks with the aim of getting help finding employment. It was Liam’s ambition to work a farm, but they also investigated and then applied for an agriculture course at Houghall College.

As Liam didn’t have a CV he and Michele worked on one together they also looked at online courses that could enhance his chances of finding employment, these included “First Aid at Work.”

They also started contacting local farms to see if there was any vacancies available and spoke to Matthew Harris of Sprucely Farm. This resulted in a positive conversation with Matthew as they discussed the farm, arable farming and how the farm has 2,000 pigs. Mathew said he was going to consider recruiting Liam as a farm hand and asked Michele to call him back the following day for his decision.

Part of the discussion with Matthew involved if Liam possessed a tractor licence, which he did not, although he did have a provisional licence.

Liam met with Matthew subsequently started working at Sprucely Farm in July 2025. DurhamWorks have stayed connected with Matthew and Liam as well supporting Liam by arranging driving lessons using the Flex-Fund, as one of Matthew’s conditions of employment of Liam was him to pass his driving test.

Speaking about his experience with DurhamWorks Liam said, “I received so much support and guidance from Michele at DurhamWorks, all of which helped me find employment. I always wanted to work on a farm and DurhamWorks gave me the chance to achieve this ambition with Matthew at Sprucely Farm, and I am really enjoying this opportunity.”

Mathew added “Liam has been a fantastic addition to the team at Sprucely Farm. I would recommend any business in County Durham looking for a new member of staff to contact them. They prepared Liam so well for work and continue to support him now that he has started working here.”