Connexions in Buckinghamshire is holding events focusing on helping young people gain diplomas that will widen their choices after leaving education:
The diplomas have been developed with employers, schools, colleges and universities and are currently in 10 different subjects.
They aim to provide students with a route into higher education or employment combining learning with practical experience.
For more information young people can visit www.buckschoices4me.com or contact their Connexions Personal Adviser in school or call 0845 313 3413.
via Bucks Free Press

In a move to get more young people out of NEET status and into employment, the careers office in Coventry and Warwickshire will be sending out letters to over 1500 young people inviting them to take part in the government’s Entry to Employment scheme:
There are 1,692 16, 17 and 18-year-olds in Coventry and Warwickshire who fall into the category.
Numbers have increased this year because of the credit crunch which is hitting 18-year-olds leaving college or school and looking for a job particularly hard.
Staff from young people’s careers service Connexions are …

The recent YouGov index shows that out of work young people feel unhappy about more aspects of their life than people in work:
While 15% say that their life lacks direction, 13% claim to feel down or depressed all or most of the time and 12% feel isolated all or most of the time.
These Northern Ireland results come as part of a UK-wide survey of 2,088 16-to-25-year-olds which suggests that unemployed young people are twice as likely to feel down or depressed than those in work.
Via 4NI

Can working for free provide a path out of a NEET lifestyle for young people?
Courtney Theobald worked 14-hour days for nothing to prove her worth and escape life as a NEET. The 18-year-old, from Stroud, Glos, was unemployed at the end of a one-year course in childcare.
But she refused to spend her days lounging in front of the telly and did six months’ unpaid work at a clothes shop, only to be told they couldn’t afford to take her on.
Then Courtney found that a 99p store was looking for employees …

Comunity Care UK follows a week in the life if a Social Work student:
Monday
I am a mere three weeks from completing the theory side for my MA course. I’ve already done two placements – the first with teenage parents and the second in an elderly day care centre. I’ve yet to work in a statutory placement, or meet a social worker who isn’t a lecturer, but we are assured this will happen during our final six-month long opportunity. Fingers crossed. I have a meeting with my personal tutor to discuss …

The Princes Trust YouGov Youth Index survey details the lasting effects of the recession and unemployment on the country’s youth, and warns could cause a ‘lost generation’:
The young unemployed are already significantly less happy and confident – even about health, family relationships and friends – than those in work, it claims.
The extent to which feelings of lowered self-esteem permeate the lives of youths not in employment, education or training (so-called Neets) is revealed in a poll.
Conducted for The Prince’s Trust, the YouGov Youth Index documents the psychological setbacks inflicted …

What options are available to a social work team manager? The Guardian explores five available options, what they would involve and also the expected salary:
1. Working for the youth offending service as a parenting expert is an option. Lucy would be responsible for parenting orders and would have to write reports for courts….
2. Lucy could become a Connexions project co-ordinator of a pilot scheme looking at developing a district-wide system to support government policy to raise the school leaving age to 18 and keep more young people in education, employment …

In the ast 12 months the number of people claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance has doubled, the BBC reports:
Those claiming JSA for more than 12 months rose to 201,015 in November 2009, up from 103,930 in December 2008. And 58 local authorities now have over 1,000 long-term claimants, compared with 19 last year. The TUC is urging the government to extend its job guarantee for young people to everyone who has been unemployed for 18 months.
via the BBC