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Supporting a pipeline of future talent

Professionals from across the region have been volunteering their time to help young people develop the skills, attitudes and behaviours that employers need.

They’re part of a growing network of Enterprise Advisers – business leaders from a wide range of sectors who partner with local schools and colleges to support careers guidance and skills development.

And earlier this month, more than 40 delegates heard first-hand about the benefits that Enterprise Advisers bring to both businesses and schools, at the latest North East Enterprise Adviser Network meeting.

Robert Irving, Head of Newcastle Business Support at Brewin Dolphin; Jill McKinney, Head of Skills & Training at Sunderland Software City and Tamara Hastie, Owner at The Employment Station, all shared their experiences of working with schools and colleges and the benefits the relationships have provided.

Their messages were reinforced by Paul Freeman-Myers, Associate Assistant Head Teacher and school career leader at Hexham Middle who reiterated the value of the partnership model, and who suggested that young adults who had good levels of contact with employers while at school were more likely to earn more than their peers who didn’t.

John Jones, Director of Transformation at Diamond Group, captured the essence of being an Enterprise Adviser. He said: “I want to help shape the future workforce, by equipping young people with the capability to do the right things and with the personal strength and resolve to achieve their goals.”

The Enterprise Advisor network is a national initiative, regionally led by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership.  Enterprise Advisers are volunteers from across all sectors and sizes of organisations who work directly with individual schools and colleges to develop effective and strategic employer engagement plans to enhance careers and enterprise learning within the curriculum.

The North East Enterprise Adviser Network meeting in September was supported by Brewin Dolphin.

If you would like to know more about the North East Enterprise Adviser Network and the opportunities it provides to:

  • Build personal development
  • Support young people
  • Identify a pipeline of future talent for your sector/industry

Please contact [email protected]

The North East Enterprise Adviser Network is part of North East Ambition, led by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). The goal of North East Ambition is for all North East schools and colleges to be achieving the Good Career Guidance Benchmarks by 2024. By doing this, every young person should be able to identify routes to a successful working life, make more informed decisions about their future and be better prepared for the workplace.

Ensuring young people have the skills required for the future North East workforce is fundamental to the region’s economic growth, underpinning our aim of driving an uplift of 100,000 more and better jobs by 2024.

 

North East Ambition is part-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF).