Opportunities for youth programme (2)

On Tuesday 29th July, 3 young people, currently enrolled on the Opportunities for Youth Programme, will share their experiences with Cumbria County Council's Cabinet. Due to the success of the current programme Councillors will also consider a new project, 'Pathways for Youth Employment', to be set up from March 2004, to provide a further 40 employment placements giving young people from disadvantaged areas of the County access to training and work experience. 

County Councillor Lawson Short, Cabinet Spokesman for Environmental Issues & Protection says 

"I am looking forward to hearing about the experiences and views of these 3 young people who have taken part in the Opportunities for Youth Programme. For many years now, Cumbria County Council has been supportive of creating employment opportunities for young people, particularly in areas facing long term economic decline. This Programme comes to an end in March next year so an evaluation study has recently been undertaken to give us an idea of how successful the Programme has been. From this, we can now look at how we can refocus the programme in the future to make sure that the young people who live in the most disadvantaged areas of the County continue to have access to training and work experience. The new programme that is being looked at will require an annual budget of £187k to create around 40 placements each year over a 3 year period. Each of these placements will be expected to achieve a Level 2 qualification in an appropriate NVQ. We will also be looking at how the County Council, as an employer, can improve its own recruitment practices to make it easier to recruit young people. I hope that Cabinet will be able to support this new programme to continue to increase the educational standards and skills levels of the young people taking part and equip them for good quality jobs and enable them to live in and contribute to their communities."