Unemployed get on the ball

Saturday 22 November 2014

A group of young unemployed Islanders is getting a kickstart to help prepare for going back to work, or onto further education.

The Prince’s Trust are running a week long football course for people aged 16-25 to help tackle their confidence, motivation and teamwork skills.

They will learn how to coach,  develop their own football skills, do an emergency first aid workshop and referee a game and at the end of the week they will organise a tournament for some of the pupils at Grand Vaux school.

Assistant youth worker Lisa Mansell said: “It’s a pretty good engagement tool. We run various short courses to get people involved and motivated, it builds on their skills, communication, teamwork and it will be good for them to put on their CV at the end of it.

“It’s a week of something fun and then through that we work with them to see what they want to do next and try and help them get a qualification from it.

“They will get a coaching award from Community Sports Development. It’s a starting block to show that they have shown up and learnt the basics of coaching.

“Our aim is to get 75% of them either back into work or onto further education.

The Prince’s Trust runs several short “Get started” courses throughout the year. Earlier this summer they offered one group of young people the chance to sail around the south coast of England. 80% of them went back to work afterwards or onto further education.