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

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 contacting all of them to persuade them to join one of the courses.

via Coventry Telegraph

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

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 and signed up for a two-week work trial. At the end of it she was offered a job. She says:

‘I didn’t think it would be hard to find work when I left college but the reality was a different story.

via The Mirror

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 progress of my work. My dissertation is about progress since the first Laming report and is proving to be a challenge. My tutor reassures me that my work is progressing well.

via Comunity Care UK

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 on 16 to 25-year-olds – including graduates and those with fewer qualifications – as they struggle to find jobs.

The Youth Index reveals that those out of work are significantly less happy with their health, friendships and family life than those in work. Nearly one in 10 young people claim that unemployment drove them to drugs or alcohol. The survey, based on interviews with 2,088 16 to 25-year-olds, found that unemployed young people are also more likely to feel ashamed, rejected and unloved more of the time.

via The Guardian

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 or training….

Via The Guardian

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

"Government departments, national agencies, voluntary organisations and local authorities all work to different targets and agendas, and that can muddy the water and prevent a coherent approach to dealing with the issue of young people who aren’t working or getting any form of training.

"In these tight times all public money has to work as hard as possible. The billions of pounds being paid out each year in benefits is simply money down the drain if ways aren’t found of using that money to help people change their lives for the better. Very few people want to depend on benefits to support their families or put food on the table, but the current system can sometimes work against them."

via eGov monitor

The reduction in a year-on-year comparison equates to an additional 127 of the borough’s young people who have found work, training placements or returned to education.

The council said more teenagers are staying on in education, and figures show that at the end of October, 81.01% of 16 to 18-year-olds were in continued learning compared with 73.45% at the end of October last year.

The fall is being hailed by the council as an ‘excellent improvement’ in the borough’s fortunes because the figures are more likely to go up during an economic downturn.

via Runcorn & Widness Weekly News