The ambition of the Young Person’s Guarantee is that within two years every young person in Scotland aged 16-24 will have the opportunity of a job, apprenticeship, further or higher education, training programme or volunteering.

The impact of the pandemic on employers and young people alongside a challenging labour market means that there has never been a more important time to consider how young talent can benefit your organisation.

This webinar will help employers involved in addressing the Climate Emergency find out why it makes it easier for young people and employers to connect, and how to get involved.

Delivered by the Scottish Government and Skills Development Scotland the webinar includes:

• an overview of the Young Person’s Guarantee, the 5 asks of employers and how to sign up
• examples from employers on how they’ve got involved
• Climate Emergency information from SDS and information on apprenticeships and business support

The event will be hosted and introduced by Fuel Change.

The webinar takes place Wednesday 16 March, 10am

Register Here

Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2022 (SAW) takes place 7-11 March 2022.

Once again we are asking employers in and around the West Region (Renfrewshire, East Ren, Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire) to get involved – to showcase to young people, educators, parents / carers / guardians, and other employers – that there are lots of employers offering apprenticeship opportunities now or in the near future.

In the past we have taken a large banner around employers and arranged a photo of their apprentice(s) holding the banner – due to Covid we are not doing it that way this year.

Instead, employers can show their support in a number of ways:

1. Take a photo of current apprentice(s) and post on social channel with hashtag #ScotAppWeek22 and tag DYW West
2. If able to you can overlay the photo with your logo, our logo and add in the hashtag as text and URL if apprenticeship vacancies are live now or soon will be – and post as explained in 1. above
3. Get an apprentice to hold the attached 1 pager  (include your logo and some text such as URL) and take a photo and post as in 1. above
4. Record a short video and post using hashtag #ScotAppWeek22 – video content could be a current apprentice talking about their role / how they got it / what they do or another person in the company to attract future apprentices to apply and therefore mention what you are looking for, qualifications, skills and experience – apply by date / where to go for more info etc – and post using hashtag etc

We have attached a SAW 1 pager that you can edit, download and print which you can then use to take a photo with and post on your socials to show support for Scottish Apprenticeship Week 22.

We have also included an example of what the 1 pager should look like.

Can you please let the DYW West team know by 7^th March 22  if you are able to take part and your preferred way of getting involved from 1-4 above. (email)

Thank you

DYW West

Your Year, Your Career is a social media signposting campaign to a range of sector specific virtual resources for S1s, S2s and S3s. The resources are for educators to be able to use within their classrooms or for young people and parents to learn about the world of work at home.

Resources for the following sectors have been developed:
 

Food and Drink (Tasty Careers)
Healthcare (Healthy Careers)
Energy (Energising Careers)
Construction (Build Your Future)
Creative Industries (Discover Creative)

STEM West our annual STEM event - where organisations involved in STEM help to inspire young people to choose STEM subjects at school and showcase early careers in their industry - was held from 22nd-26th November 2021.

We decided to have the event online again due to Covid and asked for employers to create and submit STEM related video content that could be shown in schools.

We wouldn't have been able to have a successful STEM West 21 without all of the amazing employers who put time and effort into creating videos for us.

We want to say a massive thank you to all of the employers who sent us a video for #STEMWest21 and to everyone who has viewed the videos so far! 

#STEMWest will be back next year!

If you've not had a chance to check out the videos then you can see them all on our YouTube channel https://buff.ly/3cMQrjT

You can also check out the list of the great employers we had take part from the attachment below.

Scotland's Biggest Parent's Event is back for another year!

This year Scotland’s Biggest Parents’ Events (SBPE) will take place over the week of 15–19 November 2021 which coincides with a new national week ‘Scottish Careers Week’ developed by Skills Development Scotland.

SBPE's National Launch Event, will take place on Monday 15th November at 7pm, along with a series of more local events and activities across the rest of the week and social media activity.

The aim is to deliver some key messages about jobs and skills of the future and how employers and wider partners are involved in guaranteeing our young people in Scotland a positive step after school. We will feature information on the Scottish Careers Service with our partners Skills Development Scotland and you will hear about how Developing the Young Workforce is bringing the curriculum to life through employer experiences in schools. All of this in a jam packed 30 minute video!
 

Click to view Launch Video

The DYW network are delighted to be welcoming the new year with our new Virtual Careers campaign 'New Year First Career'!

About

We had initially planned to launch virtual careers events on the week beginning 25th January. However, due to COVID-19 restrictions, we have decided to delay the launch of these until pupils are back in school and can receive the full benefits of the events. With that in mind, we're making the accompanying resources available for educators on Monday, 25th January to support them during the lockdown period. These resources are focused around 'Tasty Careers', 'Healthy Careers' and 'Energising Careers'.

Once the resource packs are made available on the 25th, recipients will be able to access a series of career inspiration films which will be hosted on the DYW Scot website. These films will be complementary to the resources and toolkits and would serve as the basis of school activity, with local content such as class projects and live Q&A sessions being added in, for example.

What are the aims for the New Year First Career campaign?

• To raise awareness of the diversity of careers in the food & drink, healthcare and energy sectors as well as how to access them
• To enable young people to think about their subject choices in relation to pathways and make informed decisions
• To support educators and parents to understand how to support their young people on their journeys

Get Involved

Schools who wish to deliver the resources during w/c 25th January are encouraged to post content on social media using the hashtag #DYWVirtual and tagging their local regional group (@DYWWEST) and DYW Scot (@DYWScot).

For more information, don't hesitate to get in touch with us! You can contact our Digital Marketing & Events Executive, Fraser, at fraser.woods@dywwest.co.uk.

The first organisations to back the £60 million Young Person’s Guarantee have been announced by Economy Secretary Fiona Hyslop. 

In a collective effort to help young people, the Scottish Government has been joined by SSE, Capgemini, NHS Lothian, Scottish Water and Standard Life Aberdeen in the commitment to ensure everyone aged between 16 and 24 has the opportunity of work, education or training.

The Guarantee aims to give all young people in Scotland the chance to succeed despite the economic impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19)

Organisations backing the Guarantee make five pledges to help young people at this critical time:

• prepare young people for the world of work through work experience, volunteering and work-based learning opportunities
• engage with and provide opportunities to young people who face barriers to work
• create work-based learning, training and upskilling opportunities for young people
• create jobs and opportunities for young people through apprenticeships, paid internships and work experience
• create an inclusive workplace to support learning and enable young people to meet their potential

Economy Secretary Fiona Hyslop said:

“The pandemic is having a disproportionate economic effect on our young people, reducing job opportunities just as they are starting out on their careers. I am delighted to be launching the Young Person’s Guarantee today to help ensure their prospects are not permanently damaged

“I want to thank the early trailblazers who have backed our ambitious initiative and recognise the importance of supporting our young people.

“The leadership of employers from across Scotland and from all sectors will be key in providing the opportunities that will make this Guarantee a success.  This employer leadership will build on our strong track record of tackling youth unemployment through our industry-led Youth Employment Strategy – Developing the Young Workforce.   

“We are encouraging employers to come forward and join what is a crucial intervention to ensure that we capture the potential of our young people and prevent coronavirus (COVID-19) leaving a lasting impact on the employment opportunities of our future workforce.

“I want Scotland’s young people to know we are right behind you, we want you to be successful and we will do everything we can to give you the opportunities you need.”

Sandy Begbie, who led the Edinburgh Guarantee said:  “In the spring, I was delighted to be asked to develop a strategy to establish a Young Person Guarantee for all 16 to 24-year-olds in Scotland.  The ambition is clear, I want every one person who is unemployed to be given an opportunity for a job, apprenticeship, education, training or volunteering.  I strongly believe we must act now and decisively, our young people are an asset and a credit to Scotland.”

Background:

Further information on the Young Person’s Guarantee is available on the www.youngpersonsguarantee.scot website.

The Young Person’s Guarantee was one of the main recommendations of the Advisory Group on Economic Recovery.

The £60 million Young Person’s Guarantee is part of a total of £100 million for employment support and training announced by the Scottish Government to tackle employment challenges. £10 million of this will be used to support a range of measures to recruit and retain apprentices.