Opening the door to Positive Futures for young people

Warwickshire County Council has thrown its weight - and £275,000 of funding - behind a new scheme to help the most difficult-to-reach young people into education, training or employment.

The Positive Futures programme is now up and running with the objective of helping 15 to 24-year-olds who are categorised as NEETs (not in education, employment or training) or are at risk of becoming so.

Delivered by highly-renowned independent training provider Pet Xi, based at Westwood Business Park, Positive Futures aims to have had 780 youngsters under its supportive wing by the end of 2019.

More than 60 young people are already in the programme, receiving the input of specially-trained mentors with a view to gaining qualifications and employability skills to help them into traineeship, apprenticeship, further education or employment.

The Department of Work and Pensions were looking to part-fund new projects so the county council's Skills for Employment team backed Positive Futures with £275,000, which along with similar investment from Pet Xi, has unlocked £550,000 from the European Social Fund.

"We were very pleased to support this because Positive Futures is an excellent project which is filling a real gap in support for young people aged between 15 and 24," said Glenn Robinson, Warwickshire County Council's Skills for Employment programme manager.

"We know there are about a thousand young people in the county in this age-range who have, for various reasons, drifted outside education and employment and there are probably many more out there that we just don't know about.

"Pet Xi is a successful, dynamic organisation with the ability to deliver in this field so we saw a real opportunity to access funding which allows us to address this issue."

While delivery on the ground is carried out by Pet Xi, the council remains closely involved as a strategic partner.

"We are there to help and advise where necessary and also ensure that the funding we have put in derives best value and is deployed most effectively," said Mr Robinson. "Our role is also to make the community as aware as possible that this free support is available.

"We have written to all headteachers in the county to flag up Positive Futures because, while most of the young people supported will be beyond school age and enter the project through contacts made at places where young people go such as sports centres and chess centres, about ten per cent are still at school."

* Positive Futures is part-funded by the European Social Fund, with additional funding from Warwickshire County Council.