Youth Employment and training Initiatives meeting (YETI)
Wednesday 19th June 2013
Present:
Apologies: / Nadeema Chaudhri (CHAIR) Tanya Zuchoussui, David Allister, Rebecca Jennings, Gemma Fox, Lucy Coddington, Natalie Arculli, Dominic Wade, Russell Smith, Christina Shearer, Daniel Guerra, Lorraine Gleiuual, Matthew Penn, Sue Coster, Jo Scrimshaw, James Searle
Donna Rose, Paul Garrett
Agenda
- Key Messages and action points from previous meeting
- Good Practice
- Training Provision with low take-up
- Gaps in Provision
- Vacancies with low take-up
- What are we going to do about it?
- What else is needed?
- AOB
- Date of next meeting
1 / Key Messages and action points from previous meeting
Last meeting was the first ever YETI meeting. YETI meetings are useful as they encompass lots of local knowledge and encourage better communication. YETI has identified that a lot of opportunities for young people do exist, but sometimes they fall through the cracks – This needs to be looked into.
2 / Good practice
Provision needs to address multiple barriers such as;
- Pastoral care
- lack of roll on/roll off provision
- flexibility
- travel costs
3 / Training Provision with low take-up
NEET figures
16-17s has highest number needing provision
18+ has less
80 NEET clients in Three Rivers
105 NEET clients in Watford.
4 / Gaps in Provision
Identified gaps in provision were:
- Lots of providers - but needing qualifications that a lot of young people don’t have.
- Lots of very good opportunities but finding it difficult to fill them.
- Pre-Apprenticeship training might be needed.
- Courses need to provide skills that are actually useful to young people in gaining employability
- Vocational practical skills required – Multi - skills trade or constructions an area which has limited options in.
5 / Vacancies with Low take-up
Handout given which highlighted that there are lots of jobs but they have a low take-up. There are several reasons for this:
- Application process too complex – Applying online is not ideal for some young people.
- Confidence is an issue for a lot of young people
- Travel – lots of young people unwilling to travel out of their area due to cost.
- Academic criteria – some vacancies requesting GCSE’s which is not possible.
6 / What are we going to do about it?
Several ideas were given about what should be done
- Entry criteria needs to be more realistic
- Courses need to be more hands on
- Courses need to be more flexible
- More support needs to be given to prevent low attendance and ensure course completion
- Perhaps offer monetary incentives to help with take-up / completion
- Traineeships
- Making sure employers are aware of what training providers can offer
- Setting up a system to monitor young people who drop out of college so that they can be targeted as soon as possible.
- Young people need to be more aware of what courses are on offer.
- Russell from Building Zone stated he could set up provision locally for Construction for 16-18 however he will need access to funding for this. Discussion held on way forward and TCHC advised they could look at options on how this could be supported particularly for the Youth Contract clients. This would however not support the 18+ groups due to the YC funding impacts
7 / Action Points
- September 12th – Your Future Event for year 11’s – More info to be sent out
- Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Provider Network – a chance to network within a broader context – Nadeema to look at setting up a more regular localised meeting.
- Youth Connexions training provider brochure – This will show all local provision and be available to all young people in the brochure format as well as online – From September.
- Try and get colleges involved in YETI – particularly foundation learning provisions ESF programme
8 / AOB
- Funding to be looked into with Building Zone and TCHC as a potential way forward.
- Russell form Building Zone to meet and discuss with Nadeema for the potential way forward locally to support funding.
9 / Date of next meeting
- Next meeting to be held on Wednesday 20th November 0930-1200