It’s National Employability Day and we are celebrating four years of Skills Launchpad Plymouth!
What started as a free virtual one-stop-shop skills service to connect local people with opportunities from their homes during the pandemic, has been a transformational project, leaving a legacy for local people and businesses.
More than 54.5k unique visitors have benefited from the central digital service over the last four years, gaining free access to localised resources, news and events pages, good news stories, and monthly publications including the Apprenticeship Bulletin and Youth and Adult Hub opportunity posts, however, the human element is the key to Skills Launchpad Plymouth’s success and that is thanks to Barclays Bank who house the service on the first floor of their Plymouth city centre branch. Skills Launchpad Plymouth has benefited from this in-kind support for more than three years, and it enables the coordinators to offer face-to-face advice and guidance, Monday to Thursday each week, from a central location.
To support young people seeking employment, education and training, there is a high level of support available from the friendly Youth Hub team. At Skills Launchpad Plymouth people can attend a 1:1 appointment, employability sessions, and themed events, in the community various youth groups are regularly attended and there is great collaboration with professionals at city events. Most recently the team has begun seeing fantastic results from work to remove barriers for young people looked after by the Virtual School.
Support for adults facing redundancy or changing careers has also continued to evolve and develop through the Adult Hub. In addition to providing more dedicated online resources for those over 50, Plymouth’s military community and Plymouth’s growth sectors including the green economy, the Adult Hub is supported by Skills and Workforce Coordinators who work to enable residents to upskill and access meaningful employment.
Those looking for support to access skills, training, education, careers and jobs in Plymouth’s growth sectors, now also receive help from three sector skills partnerships in the city. The council’s Skills team has dedicated coordinators for construction and the built environment, health and social care and the visitor economy, using the Building Plymouth sector skills partnership for construction, and it’s 70 members, as the blueprint. Building Plymouth will be celebrating its ten-year anniversary in 2025, and we hope that Caring Plymouth and Welcoming Plymouth will continue to develop with the same vigour.
Plymouth City Council’s Skills Lead, Emma Hewitt said: “Four years ago we brought key partners together – the Department for Work and Pensions, the National Careers Service, CSW Group, employers, training providers and support organisations, and formed a city-wide partnership that has gone from strength to strength. Our team of specialist coordinators have now supported over 1,900 people with personalised a 1:1 skills action plan to help them move forward towards positive next steps. Of these, more than 835 have gained employment, become self-employed or accessed training and/or education, and hundreds more have accessed pre-employability, mental health support or volunteering opportunities.”
“By continuing to secure external funding for coordinator roles, we've complimented the virtual support available on the website and humanised skills delivery for the city. The team join the dots between individuals and opportunities in the city, and that hasn’t gone unnoticed. We are proud to have continually gained national, regional and local acknowledgement for working in city-wide partnership to deliver better outcomes for Plymouth. Most recently these have included the 2024 MJ Awards and the 2023 ERSA (Employment Related Services Association) Employability Awards.”
To access support to connect with skills, training, education, careers and jobs in Plymouth, visit www.skillslaunchpadplym.co.uk, or keep an eye on opportunities and updates via the social media channels @PlymLaunchpad on X and @SkillsLaunchpadPlymouth on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.
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