Sheffield Youngsters Building Better Futures
Youth charity The Prince's Trust is set to launch Yorkshire's first on-site construction training course in Sheffield today (11 February) as part of an ambitious programme to get hundreds of unemployed, young people into work and address regional skills shortages.
The charity will be working in partnership with the recently formed Construction & Business Services group (CBS) - a collaboration of industry and business leaders who have teamed up to help the city's unemployed young people develop the skills they need to find work in the construction industry.
The CBS group was pioneered by The Prince's Trust with support from international legal services organisation DLA Piper, a global company which retains its roots in Sheffield and which plans to train hundreds of young people from the Yorkshire region to help plug the skills gap.
The group also includes construction industry giant Carillion who will work alongside The Trust to deliver the two week 'Get Into Construction' course for unemployed 18 to 24-year-olds using many of Carillion's national training centres. The first onsite course will be run at a Carillion development in Castlegate known as The Square.
Quote from Peter Galley (Project Manager Carillion Building The Square) "As part of such a large organisation like Carillion, it's great to see its many different businesses working together to offer local people the opportunity to train and gain experience on one of or sites. Corporate Social Responsibility is at the heart of everything Carillion does and our investments are in the future of people and not just bricks and mortar. Every time we work like this we take one step closer to achieving our goal of making tomorrow a better place"
In total, 14 young men and women have been enrolled onto the course which will help them to acquire new skills such as paving, bricklaying, preparing building materials and reversing vehicles.
The apprentices will also work towards gaining a construction industry health and safety card under the Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS). This basic entry certification will enable the young people to work on a construction site upon completing the course.
Neil McMillan, Development Director for Carillion said: "Carillion is delighted to be delivering this worthwhile project onsite in Sheffield. We hope that this exciting scheme will reduce the skills shortages that currently exist in the region whilst giving disadvantaged young people a real future."
Since The Prince's Trust was set up by HRH Prince Charles in 1976, the youth charity has helped more than 550,000 14-30 year olds who have struggled at school, been in care, have a history of long-term unemployment or have been in trouble with the law.
