Heather Kidd, Cllr for Chirbury and Worthen (and Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for Ludlow) has called on Shropshire Council to work harder on publicising its services to help youngsters find jobs and training after revelations at a conference on supporting families held today (11th Nov) in Craven Arms.
Heather said “We have a major problem in this area with NEETS – young people not in education, employment or training. At least part of this problem is bizarre in the way that both Shropshire and the UK Government go about publicising the services available to help them find jobs.
It seems that the Children and Young Peoples Services Department of the Council and ‘Connections’, the two bodies who are charged with providing support, are not even able to advertise in the Council’s magazine because they don’t have the finance! Surely that given the High priority given to finding young people employment the Council could waive this!
There is apparently, some advertising on TV but that’s it. I have two daughters who are or have recently been looking for work. One, a graduate, only received careers advice from university and the second has not been contacted at all.
These bodies are doing a good job contacting the most deprived families in our communities and helping their young people into work. However, my concern is that there is a large number of 18-24 year olds with no clue on how to go about finding work and have somehow dropped off the youth service’s radar.
I’m going to be contacting the Council’s Administration to ask for a far more vigorous publicity campaign in both the local press and the ‘Shropshire Magazine’ so that these young people receive the help and support they deserve.”
As Chair of Shropshire Council’s Community Scrutiny Committee, Heather will tabling the issue of 18-24 year olds dropping out of sight for discussing by the Committee.