Youth Progressions Officer

**Progressions Officer
- West Midlands**

**About Volunteer It Yourself (VIY)**

VIY combines volunteering and DIY by challenging young people aged 14-24 to learn trade and building skills, on the job, by helping to refurbish and transform youth and community facilities in need of essential improvements (e.g. youth clubs, community centres, sports clubs, and arts, music and cultural venues).

The majority of young people who take part and benefit are disengaged or excluded from mainstream education and training, at risk of disengagement, and/or unemployed.

VIY participants are mentored by professional tradespeople and gain vocational skills accreditations as well as access to further training, work placement and apprenticeship opportunities with local providers and employers beyond the project.

VIY is scaling rapidly, reaching and benefitting even more young people and communities. As such, we are now looking for a driven and focused individual who is committed to supporting young people into work. VIY is fast moving and challenging, this role will require energy, determination and flexibility.

**Job purpose**

The Progressions Officer will specifically support VIY participants in progressing, where relevant/appropriate, to further and higher level training and employment opportunities beyond VIY. This will involve working in close communication with youth engagement colleagues to ensure learners experience a smooth learner journey from sign-up to project to progression. This role will involve working closely with VIY’s existing partners, including retail trade employers Travis Perkins and Dulux as well as developing new relationships - and identifying and teeing up progressions pathways - with other relevant stakeholders such as construction sector employers and vocational skills colleges.

This role requires the ability to build relationships with our learners and referral partners, with the goal of empowering them to make positive choices to find a career or education in the construction industry. This may be through a number of channels such as one-to-one sessions over the phone, in person and group workshops.

**The role**

**Location**: Flexible/Home-based. Regular travel across the West Midlands and occasionally beyond will be required to meet young people and Referral Partners, including project sites, colleges, training centres, Jobcentres, Construction organisations and networking events. Due to the location of the venues, a car and full driving licence would be beneficial.

**Responsibilities**
- Provide high quality information, advice and guidance on learning and work opportunities to learners
- Help learners identify and consider the range of choices available to them into the construction industry and outline possible ways forward
- Develop individual action plans with learners to seek employment, education and training outcomes and support learners to achieve these goals
- Discuss with learners how to overcome any barriers to reaching their goals and refer them to other agencies for advice and support where appropriate
- Collaborate with partners who referred the learners to VIY to gain their buy
- in and support with achieving the outcomes identified
- Oversee and account manage existing and new corporate partnerships within the construction sector, identifying opportunities for connecting VIY learners with partners, including:

- Construction organisations visiting a VIY project to meet learners
- Organise site visits and engagement within their organisation
- Advertise entry level roles/traineeships/apprenticeships opportunities
- Undertake any other tasks and responsibilities appropriate to the level of this post

Other activities include:

- Collaborate with internal colleagues across the organisation, in particular, the Youth Engagement Team and Programmes Team to identify potential learners for support
- Complete administrative tasks such as report writing and record keeping via our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, Salesforce.
- Monitoring and tracking progressions - ensuring our system are up to date and accurate for any reporting needs
- Writing careers literature (documents/ presentations) or sourcing information products from elsewhere for use within the service
- Presenting to networks and partnerships (Online & Face to face) to bring awareness of VIY and ways to collaborate

**Person specification**

**Skills, experience and knowledge**

Essential:

- Experience within the employability/ recruitment landscape, ideally in the construction sector
- Strong communication, observational and listening skills
- Ability to motivate and build a rapport with young people from diverse, and sometimes challenging backgrounds
- A flexible and adaptable approach to work
- The ability to work autonomously and manage your own caseload
- Team working skills and the capability to work under pressure
- Familiarity with technology (excel, word, power point, canva, CRM systems)
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