Partner Article

City West helps to build new talent

A Salford social housing provider is building skills and experience in young students to give them a head start in construction and help plug the industry’s skills gap.

City West Housing Trust’s School Links Construction programme, run in partnership with Salford City College, is giving 14 to 16 year-old students the opportunity to learn about construction and gain practical experience outside of the classroom.

The programme sees students from Albion Academy in Kearsley join the landlord’s skilled workforce every Wednesday to gain practical work-experience of how to maintain customer’s homes.

Students also get the opportunity take part in workshops with the landlord’s construction subsidiary City West Works, and receive one-to-one mentoring from senior staff.

After the course is completed, students are awarded with a BTEC Level 1 in Construction.

This is the third time that City West Housing Trust has run School Links Construction with schools in Salford, with the first taking place in 2011.

Since then, 23 young people have enrolled in the programme, with three of the students taken on by City West Works.

Lisa Scully, Director of Business Transformation at City West, said: “We’re dedicated to providing job opportunities for our customers, which is why programmes like School Skills Construction are important in showing young people what opportunities are out there waiting for them.

“We are giving them the skills to succeed, and I look forward to seeing today’s trainees becoming the skilled workers of tomorrow.”

City West has a long standing commitment to ensuring its customers have the right skills to find employment.

Since its launch in October 2008, City West has created 250 jobs through its Skills Programme and ensures that for every £1 million spent on improving its homes, a job is created for a local person.

Lisa said: “Amongst young people, construction has an image problem which is reflected in the poor uptake of new talent in the industry.

“In reality, construction is one of the most interesting and creative industries out there - offering a fantastic variety of careers with great opportunities for progression.

“It is our hope that we can inspire a new generation of skilled workers to ensure house-building in the UK can get back on track.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Richard .