Building Futures
Break are committed to improving the employment pathways for our young people and giving them opportunities to try new things and discover new abilities.
Many of the young people Break support have expressed a keen interest in the construction industry. After running some apprenticeships for our young people with our own maintenance team, it gave us an insight of some of the challenges our young people faced with being work ready.
This is where the idea for Building Futures came along. The aim of the project is to increase young people’s aspirations, motivation and increase their employability. By developing the skills they need to work in the construction industry and helping them gain the knowledge and experience, many more career options will open up for them.
With some funding from the Norfolk Construction Charitable Trust we have been able to recruit a dedicated team member to inspire our young people in the world of construction.
Building Futures provides a construction workshop, housing the equipment and tools needed for our young people to have a go and try things out and, as with everything our Opportunities Team does, ignite that spark and interest for them. Our links with various education settings and construction companies help define the pathways for our young people to be able to get involved in this sector and for us to continue to provide that support to them as they progress down those pathways. Break provides workshops in skills such as bricklaying, carpentry and plumbing, providing that safe space for our young people to flourish. We also support our young people with basic DIY skills and provide tuition on all sorts of handy activities which they will benefit from in their day to day life.
Building Futures is developing in co-production with our young people and is proving to be a real springboard into the construction industry, allowing them to develop at their own pace, explore opportunities they would not usually have access to discover the passion for building their future.
Participation and Co-production
We recognise that young people are the experts in their own lives and that our services will only be as good as they can be when staff and young people work together.