We work with young people aged 14-19 years old who would benefit from vocational training. 14-16 year olds (Key Stage 4) may have been excluded from school, put on a restricted timetable or just require a practical element to their curriculum. 16-19 year olds are NEET (not in employment, education or training), may have been unsuccessful in gaining or maintaining a place at college, may be living independently at a young age and have few or no formal qualifications. Our objective is to provide training and support to these young people, to help them gain qualifications and skills that will lead to further education or meaningful employment thereby improving their life chances and diverting them from potentially damaging pathways. Our work matters because being NEET at 16-18 years old is a major predictor of prolonged disadvantage and has significant impacts on mental and physical health. If a young person is male and NEET, they are five times more likely to be an offender (University of Essex - Being NEET in Essex). We work to prevent young people becoming NEET (Key Stage 4 activities) and to take them out of the NEET pool (16+ activities) to improve their life choices and chances and to reduce the significant burden on society being NEET can represent.
We run bespoke construction skills courses leading to City & Guilds' Level 1 qualifications. Activities include bricklaying, carpentry and maintenance (plumbing, wall and floor tiling, guttering, painting and plastering). We also run the Level 1 Award in Health & Safety in a Construction Environment, which together with the CITB Health, Safety & Environment Test leads to gaining a CSCS card (an essential to working on a UK building site and a passport to meaningful employment). We back up vocational training with literacy and numeracy functional skills qualifications and employability training. We work with the young people to apply for college, apprenticeships and jobs. We support 16+ students by reimbursing travel to and from our centre and by paying small training bonuses for full attendance and achievement, thereby introducing them to the concept of paid work. Many of the young people we work with are disadvantaged in some way and a significant number have learning difficulties and struggle with mainstream school and college.
