By Jack Welch
Mike Leyland, National Support Officer
About Rathbone Training
Rathbone Training has over 30 centres across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Many of the individuals who they support are disadvantaged and have low prospects prior to their support at Rathbone Training. Their work for young people is focused around three principal components:
- Study Programmes, with 16-19 year olds with little or no qualifications are supported to build their skills on vocational routes (e.g. mechanics), alongside English and Maths.
- Traineeships which last 8-12 weeks, where bursaries are provided and young people are allocated a placement with an employer, as well as building their English and Maths qualifications.
- Apprenticeships across retail, IT and social care as some examples of the vocations young people can choose as possible career pathways. Can be delivered to a degree level also.
Strengths of Rathbone Training
The organisation is very proactive in making sure the voices and views of its young people are heard. Their personal development is enhanced by weekly Enrichment classes to build their soft skills, as well as Progression Coaches that are on hand to provide pastoral support and push the young people into employment opportunities. A ‘Learner Voice’ strategy is in place to assess what young people say every quarter, which are fed in by youth forums at each of the centres and an annual National Youth Conference, which ran for five days last year, on issues that matter to them. These forums help to determine the progress at Rathbone on a ‘You said, we did and what’s changed’ format. Opportunities are also sought beyond Rathbone for young people to take part in, such as YEUK.
Supporting Young People
Rathbone Training currently have a cohort of Learning Ambassadors, who represent the organisation at recruitment events and to help organise forum meetings, as well as meeting the managers on issues that may crop up. If problems do occur, there are Enrichment sessions monthly to inform young people around safeguarding policies and a complaints/compliments policy is in place, where an email can be sent any time. Issues are fed back to the Directors to be directly dealt with at the highest level.
Progression
Last year Rathbone Training worked with just over 10,000 young people to support their progression to further education, training and work. Quality checks are in place to ensure that progression remains a priority and ensuring those that Rathbone support are moved into paid employment. Occasionally, there are cases in which young people are not immediately ready to progress, but Rathbone Training will always work to ensure young people are prepared to move out of training and into work eventually. It is recognised that the world of work is very difficult and it is accepted there may be obstacles along the way which those young people face during that time.
Helping the Area
Through the study programmes, two elements follow, which include work related learning to build a CV and skills base, alongside Enrichment in building communication abilities. Rathbone Training help to expose young people directly to the world of work and they regularly meet with employers in the areas they work in to convince them to give opportunities in apprenticeships, etc. They have a good advocacy function to help challenge attitudes and preconceptions around young people and employment, where many of the business they are in contact with are small to medium sized. They work with them closely to ensure young people are taken on.
In his interview, Mike also identified that, with the right support, apprentices provide a fresh way of thinking in the workplace and can be a real asset to any business. Rathbone Training are very pleased to be supporting YEUK’s work and the campaign to create access to opportunities.
Also as part of youth consultations we were doing around creating a new membership we had a focus group with some Rathbone Students in Leicester. Here are some images of the day:
