Pilot programme aimed to get young people job ready hailed a success

The programme, aimed at 18-30 year olds, is funded via the HSBC Innovation Fund and was designed to improve confidence, develop skills and offer experience of employment opportunities.

The four-week course incorporated face to face and online training, which included CV and interview techniques, a customer service certification, wellbeing sessions and industry visits.

Julianne Wilson, 24, who attended it, said: “It’s helped me look more into what I want to do, knowing that there is support there.”

The group will now continue to work with The Prince’s Trust who will offer further support to help them improve their skills.

Beverley Knight, operations manager for Prince’s Trust Scotland, said: “Working with Morton in the Community, we were able to identify the needs of the young people in the local area and create a new programme designed to fulfil this.

“We are excited about our new partnership with Morton, which we will continue to develop, so we can support more young people in the area to improve on the skills that potential employers are looking for.”

Nick Thow, employability project manager, Morton in the Community was delighted with how the pilot programme went.

He said: “Having designed the new programme from scratch, it has been great to see how in a short space of time this has made a meaningful difference to the young people who participated.

“We have seen a real change in them, both in their confidence and their ambition.

"Each one of them now has either a concrete next step to move on to, or an idea of where they would like to be, and they know that they have the right support in place to help them get there.

“We see this as the beginning of a long-term partnership providing the right support to people at different stages of their development.”

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Young people with Evanna Lynas (bottom centre) from The Prince’s Trust Scotland and Nick Thow (bottom left) Morton in the Community.