Employability Skills programme face-to-face sessions are back in schools
EmployabilityUK award-wining employability skills programme created in partnership with Coventry Building Society (CBS) is now back in schools following the easing of Covid 19 restrictions.
The programme that won CBS the Business in the Community award for Education Partnerships in 2018, enables around 60-80 employee volunteers to support almost 100 students from three secondary schools in Coventry. Its purpose is to develop the potential of young people and by this we mean:
- Prepare a CV that is impressive, authentic and powerful
- Experience a challenging and realistic interview
- Understand the subtle requirement of work place behaviour
- Have the ability to research, design and deliver a presentation
- Develop resilience
- Make considered and informed choices
- Acquire increased financial awareness
Coventry Building Society places its responsibilities to the local community high on its social agenda. More than this, it creates opportunities for its workforce to participate by allocating specific time for volunteering activities. EmployabilityUK developed a framework in which volunteers can receive awareness raising, support and structure. Now in its eighth year, it’s a very powerful combination.
Powerful partnership are nothing without the people who provide the energy to bring them to life, to give them an identity and purpose and over the years we have met some very special people. We have delivered briefings attended by staff from across the Society’s departments. A deep cross section of the workforce attended, listened and contributed, it is they who have made the programme such a great success.
When we bring colleagues together from across an organisation it seems right that some time is set aside to learn something about each other; what has motivated us to join in? And from colleagues who have recently taken up employment to those who had spent many years working for the Society there was a consistent theme and it is:
The desire to “put something back”
There are other motivators
- An acceptance that young people need experiences provided by non-teachers in a different setting
- An understanding that it’s okay to be “uncertain” about choices and that expressing such uncertainty is encouraged and allowed!
The personal experiences of volunteers have led them to understand that there needs to be a well-structured process towards transition from school to the next phase whether it is work, further/higher education or training and that each option is of worth and value. We know that we have here an opportunity to deliver a powerful, meaningful and relevant programme to all concerned with benefits that will prove that once again “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
If you’re interested in knowing more about our employability skills programmes or in any aspect of our work, please get in touch: we’d love to hear from you.
