FOUNDATION for Jobs, the youth employment project launched by a partnership including The Northern Echo, has worked with nearly 5,000 young people in its first three years.

The national award-winning scheme, launched in 2012, runs activities for young people from ten to 24, giving them the best chance of securing careers in the North-East’s key employment sectors.

Its major strands include working with firms to develop new apprenticeships, organising work experience and internship places to give young people skills that enhance their chance of securing work and linking industry with schools to inspire young people to consider careers that offer them the best chance of rewarding futures.

Since the project was started by The Northern Echo, Darlington Borough Council and The Darlington Partnership, work by Foundation for Jobs and its partners has resulted in 443 new apprenticeship places being created, the majority of which were at small firms which hadn’t recruited apprentices before.

This year, 126 were created.

In addition, 509 young people have been able to benefit from work experience or internships at businesses in Darlington and the surrounding area.

This year, 263 such places were created.

A key aim of Foundation for Jobs is to work with children before they leave education, with 3795 pupils at Darlington schools taking part in activities, which bring them into contact with employers, 1,300 of them in the past 12 months.

It has been proven young people who have contact with industry while at school are up to five times less likely to be unemployed at the age of 25.

Among the new activities launched in the third year of the project, more than 200 students from Darlington schools and colleges were given a hands on introduction to the North-East’s rapidly expanding subsea engineering sector by building their own deep-water robot kits, while existing projects introducing pupils to low carbon engineering or building hovercraft also engaged more than 200 pupils.

The campaign, which has Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby as its patron, has also worked in partnership with Teesside University and Digital City to run computer coding up-skilling sessions for teachers, while its ongoing work alongside Virgin Money on the Newcastle based bank’s Make £5 Grow scheme has seen the entrepreneurship initiative introduced in more primary schools.

A Foundation for Jobs spokesman said: “A key challenge for the North-East is getting young people interested in those industries where jobs are set to be created in the region, but which young people aren’t thinking about, often because of misconceptions of what those careers involve.

“We have to inspire our young people and increase their understanding of these industries from an early age, as well as the careers routes into them.

“Foundation for Jobs has only been able to achieve what it has to date through the support and input from business, school and college leaders and that partnership approach, with all parties working together towards a common goal, has been a real strength of the project to date.

“We are not resting on our laurels and in July will hold our first bioscience event for schools, which is intended to tie in with the companies that will launch as a result of the development of the new National Biologics Manufacturing Centre in Darlington.”

Last month, it was announced Foundation for Jobs had been awarded funding of £25,000 each from both the County Durham Community Foundation and the 11-19 Partnership of schools in Darlington to continue its work.

For further details contact Foundation for Jobs co-ordinator owen.mcateer@darlington.gov.uk or go to www.foundationforjobs.co.uk