Inspiring students’ futures in Norwich Schools
Your Own Place is delighted to have secured Children in Need and The Youth Futures Foundation funding to improve the employment prospects for year 9 students (13-14 year olds) at two Norwich schools in 2021 and 2022.
The aims of the project are
- Increased knowledge, skills and confidence in communication, personal resilience, workplace, relationships, employability and aspirations.
- The development of positive relationships with trusted adults, leading to an improved ability to seek help, set achievable goals, raised aspirations and improved employability.
- Sustained engagement in education and school based careers offer, leading to long-term improvement in employability prospects.
Children and young people have had a tough time through Covid19 – and this project aims to address the ongoing inequality and uncertainty brought about by the pandemic.
Following soft-skills workshops focusing on the world of work, year 9s will have the chance to chat through their plans and dreams in a safe space with a mentor who can provide an impartial listening ear, enable them to name their skills, empower them to voice their aspirations and develop a plan to achieve their dreams.
TILS++ workshops
Your Own Place are well known for providing innovative, engaging and high quality sessions for a wide variety of audiences from those in housing transition, prisoners and for employees and managers in workplaces. All of our sessions have at their heart our values and utilise our asset based and restorative approaches. The sessions for the Year 9s will be no different and will help develop their knowledge, skills and confidence in a number of soft skills.
Return for more information on the topics we will be covering in the sessions as the team work together early in 2021 to create them. The sessions will be starting in the schools with groups of 8 students, meeting for 2 hours a week, for 8 weeks, from April 2021.
An opportunity for volunteers to get involved
We will recruit, train and support the mentors for the year 9 students who attend the TILS++ sessions. Mentors will help the students build on the confidence gained in the workshops and have positive conversations on how to achieve their ambitions for the future. Mentors will use their own life experience and the skills and confidence they gain from our training to have maximum impact.
We will be recruiting for volunteer mentors from January 2021, to take part in our fantastic training and start mentoring from April. We expect volunteers to mentor for around a year, meeting their mentee once a week during school hours.
To date, Your Own Place has trained over 300 volunteer mentors who have supported school students, people in the community and those leaving prison. We provide high-quality training for the role, whether online or face to face – but don’t worry, we have worked hard to develop it to be informative and engaging – and fun!
How can I get involved?
- Follow us on social media for more information about this project and visit our Volunteer Mentoring page for the first 2021 training dates and the application form.
- For more information about mentoring please take a look at our FAQs.
- If you have any questions please contact our Mentoring Coordinator, Simone Black, by emailing simone@yourownplace.org.uk or calling 07522 410385
A quote from David Day – Headteacher at Sewell Park Academy
“This represents a fantastic opportunity for a large number of our students to receive mentoring and workshops to support their aspirations and employability for the future. This is especially vital for young people at the present time given the impact of COVID on current prospects. We are delighted at the opportunity they will have”