North Edinburgh Arts Centre is to host a major Employability event later this month. Organised by Forth Neighbourhood Partnership, ‘Employability in Forth’ follows on from a successful event held at Edinburgh’s Telford College which looked at local employability issues and initiatives.
Employability in Forth
Tuesday 18 September 2012
10.30am – 12.30 followed by buffet lunch
North Edinburgh Arts Centre
15a Pennywell Court
Following the Employment Networking Event held at Edinburgh’s Telford College earlier this year we would like to invite you to a follow up session.
A final programme for the date will be sent out soon but will include:
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An update on progress on Edinburgh’s Employability Service from the Council’s Employability and Skills team.
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A presentation from Stevenson College and Community Renewal on how the new Integrated Employment Service (Hub) will impact on Forth.
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Reflection on the discussion at the networking event and further discussion on the best way of addressing employability issues in Forth.A summary of the findings from the Telford College event:
Summary of discussion at networking event
Youth Employment 16-19 – How can we help improve the number of young people going into employment and other positive destinations?
City wide and National issues
- Need to increase training capacity across the city
- Need to look at incentives to take on a young person (converting benefits into wage subsidy?). SDS Employer Recruitment Incentive relevant here.
- More Modern Apprenticeships.
- Fund projects that get people directly into jobs.
- 21st century homes programme should include employability initiatives and apprenticeships, build into the master planning process at an early stage
Schools and youth agencies
- Need more vocational courses built into schools and make them on par with academic routes.
- Increase Careers advice in schools – time spent per pupil
- Make sure school leavers are aware of choices.
- Increase opportunities for part time work at schools.
- Improve links between schools and outside agencies.
- Need to engage with 12/13 year olds before they become disaffected.
- Bring local people into schools, including slightly older young people in the job market to “tell it like it is”.
- High drop out rate of young people from the educational system in the area – need a partnership approach to this
- Stronger links with local youth agencies
- Early intervention – teach employability skills in Youth Centres.
Mentoring/Attitudes/ Presentation Skills
- Need to look at building the work ethic and correct attitude to work
- There are jobs are available – young people need relevant skills and attitude.
- Most vulnerable have challenges in interview presentation, personal confidence/appearance. Can we make preparing for a work interview a more viable option – Interviewing makeover programme designed and delivered by partners & College.
- Recognise the value of activity that is not directly job related.
- Confidence building is the key skill needed to address this issue – e.g. Duke of Edinburgh awards
- Mentoring and 1 to 1 work makes the difference with young people likely to fail. Can we get higher profile on this? Is there a link with Forth Voluntary Sector forum that could be scaled up – possibly part of TOTAL PLACE project?
Business Links
- Involve small businesses.
- Need strong and sustained links to the business community.
- Opportunities for local jobs – where are the employers? They need to be part of any action plan, and contribute to better outcomes. Care Sector will have openings locally but perhaps more suited to 20+.
- Refocus work of SBC – excellent example of recent school projects
Training/Support
- Consider putting in place here an innovative supported one stop, integrated accommodation/training /support model for young people Ref Aberdeen Foyer model.
- Improve links with Telford College Construction faculty
- More pre-vocational courses needed
- Use innovative ways of engaging. Community Renewal use informal “ pizza night” approach to inform young people of opportunities
Strategy/Processes
- Need a clear strategy for what we want to achieve. Identify who are the key local partners who can actively contribute as part of solution, and stakeholders – these are both important but different things.
- Need specific statson the scale of this problem in North Edinburgh? E.g. we know that Craigroyston has lowest qualifications, but are we clear which aspects/priority group we need to target – the farthest away from employment, or those who need better direction and are closest to it?
- Review how we measure and monitor outcomes for longer term benefits
- Simplify the process and make it clearer to understand for young people and their families
Employment of those in 20 plus age group: What can we do to help this group into employment?
City wide and National issues
- Get more support from large public employers – Council/NHS.
- Job Centre Plus should be integral member of this partnership – they have new programmes many of us were unaware of and we can join up on how we promote: e.g. work experience programme.
- More potential for employers to pay a wage for work placements
- Simplify the process of taking short term and part time work (benefit issues). Allow people to continue on benefits whilst they take part in work experience. If a full time student there are rents/ benefits issues
Business Links
- Can SMEs help?
- How can employers tap into these young people who have successfully come through training and/or work experience
Training/Support
- Improve training in IT Skills.
- Need to increase the opportunities available – limited support for over 25s. Focussing on 16-19yr could be at expense of this group.
- Use more Work based training – e.g. CLD Youth Work degree.
- Provide funded access to learn driving as this opens up job opportunities and builds self-esteem , motivates (Birmingham project over 2 years provided mopeds+ driving test support, then passed mopeds on to next recruits) ; SQA have a qualification that provides evidence for theory test.
- College is not for many of this group.
- Difficult to get a second chance for training.
- Most vulnerable of this age group need a programme similar to younger age group to move on from past errors. Many are parents so could be reached via the schools.
Mentoring/Attitudes/ Presentation Skills
- Need to look at role models for people (third generation unemployment, who do they look to?)
- Home circumstances sometimes do not support a work ethic so how do we support them better
- How do we apply the carrot and stick?
- Ask people want they want or need.
- Hopelessness is a key issue for this age group, but many have a family to support so can motivate, be a key driver, links to schools.
- Get appropriate local people of this experience and age group to be part of the solution – get a voice.
- Buddy programme for people from this age to mentor younger ones – need positive role models.
- A key focus is how to help this age group keep jobs once they have them.
- Improve Money management skills – Financial literacy is now a huge issue for 3rd generation of unemployed in families
- Literacy issues
- Health issues – mental health issues still area of concern in area
Other key focus areas – What other key issues could be addressed by partnership working?
City wide and National issues
- Different agencies having different geographies – eg Job Centres, Scottish Government.
- Benefits Changes likely to be detrimental.
- Community Jobs Scotland – can we do it here? Like S Lanarkshire Youth Jobs fund model, funding paid for local officer, working with a number of organisations to coordinate and direct.
- Look at potential to include providing local employment opportunities as a part of planning process
- Crime and anti social behaviour impacts on young people even when they are not directly involved – often as victims.
Coordination
- Is there duplication of services locally? So many organisations and short term initiatives makes it had to know what is going on. This gets in the way of joint working
- Need to simplify structures, increase transparency, work more jointly on service (consortia) and think about longer term initiatives
- Need to get better at sharing good practice and being open about ideas and services.
- Strategic overview – planning what is needed in an area.
- With so many services it is difficult to know who to refer to?
- Encourage and reward Partnership working
Funding
- Danger that simplistic outcome-based funding can work against partnership approach
- Promote /Develop a “common good fund” – based on £xx contribution from key partners to use for targeted interventions.
- Important to note the impact of central cuts to funding of local employability projects
- Short term funding leads to interruptions of planning process
Information
- Making sure that all partners have knowledge.
- Need good labour market information – especially locally.
- Join up guidance, information and advice locally – forum?
- Use social media to engage with young people
The way forward – What is the best way to address these issues locally?
Structures/Processes
- A Forth Action Group supported but think membership should be reviewed- include service providers e.g. Chamber of Commerce, Community Renewal
- A Forth Employment Action Group be useful but should focus on business and life skills
- An Action Group could be useful for networking and co-ordination of services
- Needs to have a clear purpose and have teeth and continuity and commitment.
- Any Action Group needs a strong effective chair and secretarial support.
- Meet say twice a year to review outcomes and progress, impact, gaps /next priorities, once groundwork established.
- Involving local people in processes is important.
- Short life working groups may be useful.
- May be best to have a series of themed workshops/forums on issue we want to tackle – and also have 2/3 plenary meetings a year.
- Cross agency meetings about particularly difficult young people/groups of young people – GIRFEC approach – could be useful.
- Look at Gate 55 as an ideal model (?).
Priorities/Issues
- The initial focus could be on 16-19 year old group.
- Need to look at how resources can be shared
- Need to capture local knowledge and advocate for services needed by the community (evidenced approach)
- Need to build relationships between organisations – joint training sessions around key issues.
- Get Job Share involved in future activity.
- Get clients to come along and describe their experiences and identify flaws/opportunities.
- Get Challenge Fund MCMC group involved in future activity.
- Need a review of funding – a more strategic approach to make best use of funding
- Look at an Action Plan
Next Steps
- Hold a meeting to feedback on the issues raised at Networking event – to plan what action, who should be involved. Look to involve young people (Youth Forum/Parliament?) and employers.
