Hub aims to help young people into work
A new facility to help Rutherglen and Cambuslang’s young people get into the world of work has been launched.
Routes To Work South, which is based in Cambuslang’s CTEC building, officially kicked off their youth hub last month.
South Lanarkshire’s depute provost Pam Clearie performed the opening, where she was joined by her husband, fellow Cambuslang council lor Russell.
Operations manager Nicola McNaughton has been delighted with the early interest from young people, as they work with partner agencies to deliver an accessible, client- centred service to support the out of work and who want to find and hold down employment.
The youth hub is specifically for 16 to 24-year-olds, and was created after RTWS secured funding through the Lanarkshire Alcohol and Drug Partnership at the end of last year, to develop the hub facility.
Nicola said: “For us, in recent years our main client-base has been the 25 and up age group, but there’s been a massive shift in recent times, and as a result over the last few years we have worked hard developing different services and expanding what we offer for young people. Everything has been going really well.
“The launch was very well received by our partners, and the young people who came along as well. I think they are quite excited by the facility.
“We’re now into our second week and we’ve already had quite a few people dropping in, and we also kicked off with a workshop where we had some people participating in these.
“For now, we’re just building on what we have here and build up the number of young people coming through, as we’re expecting to get busier in the weeks ahead.
“We’ve already had a number of enquiries and the word is getting out about the hub, which is what we want.”
Nicola explained about the hub itself.
She said: “It is a multifunctional area, to provide a flexible drop in place which accommodates a soft skills area, a training space, where we can engage with clients on a one-toone basis, with group sittings, access to the internet, and the young people are also be able to use it to build relationships with their peers.
“Our intention is to also use it for employer events, and a whole host of other activities.
“We will also be doing partnership working through it in conjunction with Job Centre Plus, who will have staff based with the hub and work alongside our staff, to support young people from the Rutherglen and Cambuslang area, with one week of registering for a new claim, and they will come along and meet with an advisor.
“We will look to progress them in a positive destination, perhaps with work experience in the area, or moving them in to employment opportunities.”
The youth hub is run on a dropin basis and no appointments are necessary to use it. It is open from Monday- Friday, during office hours.