Apprenticeship Week 2010: Day 5: ‘Community A team’

Andrew Brown, SkillsActive - 05/02/10

As well as changing the lives of millions of young people, Apprenticeships have also proved they have the power to provide a major boost to both businesses and the local community in which they are involved with.

On Tuesday at our celebration event, Joe Lyons of the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation explained the role that apprentices played in his organisation and across the capital. Tottenham Hotspur, like many other football clubs, run a number of schemes using sport as a basis for education and personal development for those in their local communities.

With much of their work, Tottenham Hotspur foundation attempts to re-engage those in the community and bring them back into education in an environment that is appropriate to them. They understand that the traditional route through school isn't for everybody, and their growing apprenticeship scheme is one means of dealing with this and opening up educational opportunities to those who need them. But it isn't just the apprentices who benefit, it is those in the community that they are working with on a daily basis who also reap the benefits.

Like The Tottenham Hotspur Foundation, the Southend United Community Education Trust works to deliver an inclusive range of educational, sporting and social opportunities to improving the quality of life for individuals and neighbourhoods in South East Essex. They train a number of apprentices every year, and last year we met Richard Mann who completed his Level 2 Apprenticeship in Activity Leadership and is now working as a community coach with the Community Education Trust at the club.

Richard is a strong advocate of apprenticeships, and although he was initially interested in getting a job with a wage, he soon realised the programme offers much more than that, saying: “Through the apprenticeship I’ve got myself a full time job and am working towards getting more qualifications for myself. The apprenticeship is good as it gives you the chance to earn money, but once I got in the job I realised it wasn’t all about the money, it was all about achievement and gaining confidence in myself. The best thing about my job is seeing kids that I’ve helped with a smile on their face. If I know that I’ve helped someone, even if its just to kick a ball which they’ve never kicked before, if they’re smiling and they’re happy then I’ve done my job.”

And coming from a disadvantaged background, Richard is keen to use his experiences to help steer direct youngsters who are unsure of their future: “At the moment I have quite a big role in a programme dealing with children who may be truant at school, so the club is putting us through training where we can learn about social care, social workers and youth workers. I need to become more qualified in being able to deal with children with low self-esteem that maybe need to be pointed back in the right direction.”

Steve Goodsell, Chief Executive of the Community Education Trust at Southend United, is also positive about the apprenticeship programmes: “The main reason for the apprenticeships was for the benefits for the young people themselves, as we are always contacted by young people frustrated at the lack of opportunities to undertake coaching and work placements. So we do it primarily for them, so that they get good experience and its something for their CVs, and hopefully they’ll develop into good members of staff and we can give them a full time job.”

To find out more, our apprenticeships pages explain the programme in our sector while the apprenticeships website hosts a wealth of useful information for businesses.