Whitbread, an Olympic javelin thrower and MBE, spent 14 years growing up in the care system. Her charity, Fatima’s UK Campaign, will work with the employer partners to connect them with care leavers and their families. Young adults with experience of the care system are three times as likely as their peers not to be in education, employment or training.
The Care in Construcrion campaign seeks to fill a gap in the construction workforce as more than a third of current workers are expected to retire within ten years. The partners are working to ensure care leavers and those who support them can access training, work placements and career opportunities in the construction industry.
Launching the campaign, Whitbread was joined by two young people with experience of the care system, Kyian, aged 20, and Leighton, aged 16, who have recently completed a course with The Skills Centre and Marlborough Highways, and are now looking forward to taking up an apprenticeship with the highways and civil engineering contractor.
The programme aims initially to support more than 60 young people into the industry, and has the potential to create wider opportunities for thousands more care-experienced young people across London, the southeast and the rest of the UK in the years ahead.
The scheme’s working group also brings in expertise from the Drive Forward Foundation, a charity for care-experienced people, and civil engineering contractor Marlborough Highways.
Places for London will build on its work to date that has seen thousands of people trained through its programmes with its training partner The Skills Centre. Through its five skills hubs across London, Places for London has trained more than 12,000 people and supported thousands into long-term careers in the built environment sector.
In addition, Heathrow, the UK’s busiest airport, has already begun helping care leavers with a Care into Construction reverse careers fair introducing them to the roles with them and their supply chain and it is working with its vast supply chain to build inclusive learner pathways.
Got a story? Email [email protected]
