To celebrate International Women’s Day, Babcock at Clyde partnered with DYW West to welcome 6 female students from two local high schools to HMNB Clyde to provide an insight into the opportunities available as a female working within the STEM industry. The visit included a tour of the site and facilities, and career talks from women in Babcock, the MOD and Royal Navy, who discussed their career experiences and provided advice to young people starting out in their career journey. We hope the visit encouraged the students to pursue a career within the STEM industry.

Thanks to Babcock at Clyde for engaging with DYW West and hosting our local young people from Vale of Leven Academy and Our Lady and Saint Patrick’s High School. Our joint partnership’s aim of the day was to inspire young women to pursue careers in STEM related industries. The site tour, demonstrations and inspirational talks from successful women within STEM was extremely beneficial to the pupils, who are now expressing an interest within this area, with some now applying for apprenticeships at Babcock.

To mark International Women's Day 2022, DYW West were invited to attend an event on Tuesday 8th March by Taylor Wimpey, hosted by Shoosmiths.

We were able to hear from a number of great speakers who discussed their experiences in helping to #BreakTheBias
 

This included a virtual presentation by Nicky Moffat CBE who discussed her experience as the highest ranked woman in the British Armed Forces, as well as the practical actions that helped her and her team to thrive.

Thank you to Taylor Wimpey for inviting us along to this great event and to Shoosmiths for hosting.

The ambition of the Young Person’s Guarantee is that within two years every young person in Scotland aged 16-24 will have the opportunity of a job, apprenticeship, further or higher education, training programme or volunteering.

The impact of the pandemic on employers and young people alongside a challenging labour market means that there has never been a more important time to consider how young talent can benefit your organisation.

This webinar will help employers involved in addressing the Climate Emergency find out why it makes it easier for young people and employers to connect, and how to get involved.

Delivered by the Scottish Government and Skills Development Scotland the webinar includes:

• an overview of the Young Person’s Guarantee, the 5 asks of employers and how to sign up
• examples from employers on how they’ve got involved
• Climate Emergency information from SDS and information on apprenticeships and business support

The event will be hosted and introduced by Fuel Change.

The webinar takes place Wednesday 16 March, 10am

Register Here

Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2022 (SAW) takes place 7-11 March 2022.

Once again we are asking employers in and around the West Region (Renfrewshire, East Ren, Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire) to get involved – to showcase to young people, educators, parents / carers / guardians, and other employers – that there are lots of employers offering apprenticeship opportunities now or in the near future.

In the past we have taken a large banner around employers and arranged a photo of their apprentice(s) holding the banner – due to Covid we are not doing it that way this year.

Instead, employers can show their support in a number of ways:

1. Take a photo of current apprentice(s) and post on social channel with hashtag #ScotAppWeek22 and tag DYW West
2. If able to you can overlay the photo with your logo, our logo and add in the hashtag as text and URL if apprenticeship vacancies are live now or soon will be – and post as explained in 1. above
3. Get an apprentice to hold the attached 1 pager  (include your logo and some text such as URL) and take a photo and post as in 1. above
4. Record a short video and post using hashtag #ScotAppWeek22 – video content could be a current apprentice talking about their role / how they got it / what they do or another person in the company to attract future apprentices to apply and therefore mention what you are looking for, qualifications, skills and experience – apply by date / where to go for more info etc – and post using hashtag etc

We have attached a SAW 1 pager that you can edit, download and print which you can then use to take a photo with and post on your socials to show support for Scottish Apprenticeship Week 22.

We have also included an example of what the 1 pager should look like.

Can you please let the DYW West team know by 7^th March 22  if you are able to take part and your preferred way of getting involved from 1-4 above. (email)

Thank you

DYW West

The ambition of the Young Person’s Guarantee is that within two years every young person in Scotland aged 16-24 will have the opportunity of a job, apprenticeship, further or higher education, training programme or volunteering.

This employer webinar will help you find out more about the benefits of engaging with young people, support available and how to get involved. Delivered by the Scottish Government and Skills Development Scotland (SDS) the webinar includes:

• An overview of the Young Person’s Guarantee, the 5 asks of employers and how to sign up

• Examples from employers in Creative Industries on how they’ve got involved

• Sectoral information from SDS including apprenticeships and business support

The event will be hosted and introduced by Kathryn Willens, Head of Partnerships (Scotland) at Creative & Cultural Skills. We will also hear from Museums Galleries Scotland and BBC Scotland about how they are supporting young people into work in the Creative Industries in Scotland.

The webinar will be held on 10th Feb at 10.30am

Register here https://buff.ly/3AfSZBL

Your Year, Your Career is a social media signposting campaign to a range of sector specific virtual resources for S1s, S2s and S3s. The resources are for educators to be able to use within their classrooms or for young people and parents to learn about the world of work at home.

Resources for the following sectors have been developed:
 

Food and Drink (Tasty Careers)
Healthcare (Healthy Careers)
Energy (Energising Careers)
Construction (Build Your Future)
Creative Industries (Discover Creative)

STEM West our annual STEM event - where organisations involved in STEM help to inspire young people to choose STEM subjects at school and showcase early careers in their industry - was held from 22nd-26th November 2021.

We decided to have the event online again due to Covid and asked for employers to create and submit STEM related video content that could be shown in schools.

We wouldn't have been able to have a successful STEM West 21 without all of the amazing employers who put time and effort into creating videos for us.

We want to say a massive thank you to all of the employers who sent us a video for #STEMWest21 and to everyone who has viewed the videos so far! 

#STEMWest will be back next year!

If you've not had a chance to check out the videos then you can see them all on our YouTube channel https://buff.ly/3cMQrjT

You can also check out the list of the great employers we had take part from the attachment below.

Scotland's Biggest Parent's Event is back for another year!

This year Scotland’s Biggest Parents’ Events (SBPE) will take place over the week of 15–19 November 2021 which coincides with a new national week ‘Scottish Careers Week’ developed by Skills Development Scotland.

SBPE's National Launch Event, will take place on Monday 15th November at 7pm, along with a series of more local events and activities across the rest of the week and social media activity.

The aim is to deliver some key messages about jobs and skills of the future and how employers and wider partners are involved in guaranteeing our young people in Scotland a positive step after school. We will feature information on the Scottish Careers Service with our partners Skills Development Scotland and you will hear about how Developing the Young Workforce is bringing the curriculum to life through employer experiences in schools. All of this in a jam packed 30 minute video!
 

Click to view Launch Video

International Chefs day is celebrated every year to honour the profession and educate people about the sector. We partnered up to host an event with West College Scotland and the Scottish Chefs Federation.

The event was held over two days where 28 schools attended West College Scotland's Paisley, Clydebank and Clydebank campuses. Pupils took part in multiple activities with guest chefs and mocktail mixologists to help inspire them to think about a career in the Hospitality sector and promote heathy eating.

The events at each campus were very successful and everyone seemed to have a great day overall!

Here's to next year!

CCG have partnered with OLSP to create a 4 week construction programme that kicked off on the 21^st October. The programme will cover a variety of topics such as career talks about the site based apprenticeships and office based roles, along with work readiness and employer expectations from their HR department. Pupils will also be able to build on their employability skills by completing CV/ Cover letters and interview techniques with CCG.

Pupils have the opportunity for site visit, at a local site, to hear from the Site Manager and to meet the apprentices on site. At the end of the programme, Pupils interested in work experience on site, have the chance to apply for a 2 week work experience onsite working with plumbing, joinery and electrical trades on site.

 We had 18 pupils take part in the first 2 webinars. Pupils have really enjoyed the sessions and are looking forward to the next steps.