Extradevelopment workerstohelp disadvantaged youngpeople

Councillors are set to approve the recruitment of eight additional development workers in a bid to continue to help disadvantaged young people succeed in life.

A report to South Lanarkshire Council’s Executive Committee today (Wednesday) seeks approval to recruit a further eight ASPIRE Vocational Development Workers.

They provide youth employability support to young people identified as being at risk of struggling to achieve and/or sustain a positive destination on leaving school.

There have been changes to the criteria of Youth Employability which now enables councils to offer support to all secondary establishments in South Lanarkshire.

There has also been a decision by the Scottish Government to change the criteria for referrals for Activity Agreements and the council are now able to offer support to young people during the last six months of school as well as post school to their 18th birthday.

The project will be called APSPIRE Youth Employability and it will operate in two parts to meet the funding criteria.

It will be funded by the current Scottish Government Activity Agreement Grant of £234,000 and core funding from Education of £17,000 on top of a £220,000 from the European Social Fund.

The temporary posts would be for 24 months from this September until October 2018.