Seek and Reach is the name of a new project being delivered by Young Solutions and as the name suggests it seeks out young unemployed people aged 16 – 24 and provides an outreach service to support them. This support largely takes the form of mentoring and the amount of time a young person is allotted is largely determined by the needs of the young person. Some young people are practically ‘work ready’ and are about to launch themselves into a job, apprenticeship or training. Others are some way from the world of work and need far more support and help. Seek and Reach tailors its service to the young people’s circumstances which vary considerably. In certain cases young people may want to improve their academic qualifications or enhance their literacy and numeracy. Others require a little extra help with their confidence or communication skills. However, there are young people who face more difficult issues. They may have an addiction, an involvement in crime, be homeless or may have a significant problem with their home situation. Increasingly common amongst young people is anxiety, but for some it is far more and may be low level mental health problems or in a few instances it can be full blown mental illness.

The work of Seek and Reach is being implemented by ten key workers who are dispersed across the county. The key workers are employed to provide one to one contact with young people and design individual action plans to match the needs of the young person with whom they are working. The project has a target of working with 259 young people of which some 50% are expected to be helped into jobs, training, apprenticeships or traineeships. An attempt will be made to ensure the remaining 50% are helped to tackle some of the issues that are holding them back from getting into work or training.  The Seek and Reach project works closely with the county council and with Babcock Prime’s Careers Advisory Team. However, referrals are accepted from police, careers advisors in schools, early help and youth organisations. So if you are aware of a young person aged 16 to 24 who is not in work, training or education and who you think would benefit from support from the Seek and Reach key workers please call 01905 795098 they will be referred to a key worker.

The Seek and Reach key workers are: Tyrone Clarke; Riz Khan; Bryan Craven, Phil Walters, Delroy Thompson; Nicci Williams, Miguel Dean, Cat Goodwin, Sarah McCollum, Lisa Millichamp.