Blogging from The Hoxton Apprentice; Giving young people a chance

I am at the Hoxton Apprentice for a breakfast; with Peter Mandleson and Yvette Cooper and cast of youth and sector and business leaders! I'm attending with my Chair and we are here as representatives of the wider Third Sector to show our support. Lesley-Anne and I will be encouraging ACEVO members to play an active part in the "Young Britain " campaign.
I ought not to complain but having got to the Hoxton Apprentice at breakfast time I thought we might get breakfast. Instead there was an array of sticky buns and chocolate croissants. Not exactly the healthy option. And not a Cappuccino in sight, though the croissants are excellent. Yvette asked me to attend because she is concerned to have the third sector fully involved in a campaign to tackle youth unemployment. To read about it click here.

In the last two recessions literally hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people were left without support. Many communities had a generation lost to work and the effects of unemployment were felt for years.

There are various schemes aimed at school leavers, graduates and young unemployed people. This particular campaign is aimed at employers all over the country; asking them to act to give every young person help to find a job or training or work skills and experience.

The aim is to give young people leaving school or university a chance and to harness the talent for organisations. This will help young people get into the jobs market, and benefit our organisations into the bargain.

There are a number of ways for charities to take action:

· offering a volunteering place or a volunteer mentor for school or university leavers to help them find their feet in the jobs market
· providing work experience places or a work trial to help young people learn about work, make contacts and fill their CV
· offering an internship for a graduate
· providing an apprenticeship for 19-24 year olds
· bidding for one of the 100,000 jobs for young people in the Government’s Future Jobs Fund
· joining a Local Employment Partnership to make sure my job vacancies are advertised to local unemployed people.

So the campaign is to get as many employers as possible to commit to taking at least one of the actions to help young people.

The third sector is now a big employer. We ought to play our part and I am discussing with my Directors team how we can get involved. And I'm urging DWP to get behind strong full time volunteering initiatives where young people can volunteer on, for example sustainability projects which give them skills. Tom Flood of BTCV has great plans for a "carbon army" to galvanise young volunteers. It's a scheme the Government ought to be backing.

It was also fantastic news to hear the announcement of the first organisations who have won bids to run the Future jobs Fund. One of the successful bids (worth £35m) was frpm a consortium of third sector organisations , 3SC which was put together with the active support of Futurebuilders. Other successes from members are RNIB, Groundwork, NACRO (amongst others) at national level , and a wide range of regional and local TSOs. Great news.