Michelle Rainbow is the North East Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) Skills Director, leading the team that works with schools and colleges to raise the standard of careers guidance for students, and to close the gap between the regions best and lowest performing schools.
Here, Michelle outlines how the North East LEP is helping to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on young peoples transition to the workplace. Like all of us, schools and colleges in our region have faced huge challenges over the last few weeks – not only in terms of putting in place remote teaching and supporting vulnerable children and families, but also in terms of providing guidance and support for those students who are on the verge of starting their careers, or entering higher or further education.
The Skills team at the North East LEP works closely with schools and colleges to make sure that all young people in our region have access to the best quality careers guidance, helping them to understand the options that are open to them and enabling them to gain experience of a variety of careers and workplaces.
During this pandemic, weve seen schools put in place a variety of new and innovative ways of introducing students to the workplace, including online careers fairs, Zoom chats with employers, and virtual tours of business premises. Weve changed how we deliver our own events for schools as well, with a great turn-out for our first two webinars for North East Careers Leaders. A huge amount of work is going into adapting careers guidance to the current situation and maintaining support for young people, and were capturing these new ways of working and looking at how they can be adopted by other schools.
As well as these immediate changes, its important that we also look to the medium and longer term, so were carrying out research to gauge the long term impact of COVID-19 on careers programmes. Well use this data to co-ordinate the right support and to raise any emerging issues with government. We also need to understand how this pandemic will change the labour market in the long term, and the types of careers that young people will be moving into over the next few years and beyond.
COVID-19 and the new ways of life it brings may change some of the career routes open to young people, closing some doors and opening others. We must make sure that young people, their parents, carers and educators all understand how the labour market might change and how they can be ready to adapt. My colleagues and I are also working with the North East COVID-19 Economic Response Group, which aims to support the local economy, build business resilience, and get the region ready for recovery. As part of this, were looking at how we can keep people in employment, supporting people to retrain where necessary and helping both employers and employees find the information they need to keep people in work. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to bring change for all of us, its more important than ever that we work together to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on young people, particularly those who are transitioning from education to the workplace, and those from our most disadvantaged communities. The North East LEP will continue to work together with businesses and our education sector to make sure we are supporting all young people and providing them with the best possible support as they make decisions about their future careers.
