Trust kickstarts job prospects for local young people
The Trust is supporting four young people to gain valuable NHS work experience after successfully securing them paid employment as part of a government initiative.
The Kickstart programme is designed to support young people aged between 18 and 24 away from Universal Credit and into work experience for up to 6 months. The programme is funded by the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) which pays the ‘Kickstarter’ salaries.
Business support manager Darren Phillips explained: “I looked over all the paperwork explaining the programme and I believed that it was an excellent opportunity for us as an NHS organisation to help the young job hunters within our community by offering some work experience. This would help them build a good CV for the future and help with gaining permanent employment.
“We arranged a meeting with The Princes Trust who agreed to provide support with the recruitment and continuing development of the Kickstarters.”
Darren set about writing the job descriptions for four posts for the programme – an admin assistant, a domestic assistant, and two car park assistants – and submitted these to the DWP for advertising.
After impressing at interview, George Shields (admin assistant), Blake Kitching (domestic assistant), Byron Hall and Malakai Bland (car park assistants) started with the Trust on 28 March 2022.
Darren continued: “They have all settled into their respective roles extremely well, have qualified as fire wardens and have completed their mandatory training and inductions. All four are keen, enthusiastic and are doing an excellent job. I am happy to say that I only hear positive feedback about them.
“It has taken a lot of planning, organisation, patience, and time to reach this point. This has been a great journey of successful teamwork from all involved to help these young Kickstarters on their way to future employment.”
