Recently we’ve been doing quite a bit here at Bradford Trident looking at what we can do to support the under 30’s in our area in terms of developing enterprise and employability skills.
Our findings were that many thought the distances and time it would take to travel to neighbouring towns and cities, such as Brighouse, Halifax or Leeds were far greater (and more expensive) than in reality they are and the other issue seems to come from a fear of the unknown resulting in a lack of confidence/willingness to try. We also discovered that there are already some great initiatives about that specifically support younger people and improve their work prospects, so we thought we’d highlight some that may be of interest here.
First of all, Jonathan Smith, our experienced Enterprise Coach helps people make the move into self-employment and is also well aware of other initiatives locally, such as those listed below, that help people into employment. He is based at the Park Lane Centre (by Lidl) and his contact details are below. This is a free service offered by Bradford Trident to local people of all ages so please feel welcome to get in touch. Next, there is The Prince’s Trust, which for over 40 years has championed and supported younger people, essentially once they have left education. They do this by offering fully funded ‘Get into’ taster work trials with a whole host of employers and in disciplines as varied as retail, business technology, engineering, and even football. They also have a range of coaching services and mainly for 18-30-year-olds. They are really keen to increase the number of people accessing their services from the BD5 area too, so have a look at what they can offer on their website:
https://www.princes-trust.org.uk//help-for-young-people/programmes
There is a new enterprise/work programme being offered in Bradford under the ‘Amaze Yourself’ banner, targeting people aged 18-24. Here skills are developed and contacts made with local employers too and, as with most of the Prince’s Trust initiatives, there are no minimum qualification requirements to get on the programme.
For more detail of this new initiative see:
www.facebook.com/bradfordamazeyourself
If you are a graduate (from any University) and are living in Bradford there is another new and free initiative being run by Aspire igen – the ‘Bradford Graduate 2 Work’ programme which is achieving great employment results already too.
This is a free 13-week programme for anyone of working age who is a university graduate and whilst the majority of people on the programme are under 30 there are some who are older too. For full details of dates and eligibility requirements please see: https://www.aspire-igen.com/graduate2work