Hays teams up with Construction Youth Trust to provide training for offenders
Onley Prison, near Rugby in the West Midlands, has teamed up with a local employer, Lovell and Hays Construction, which specialises in recruiting for construction jobs, to help offenders translate the skills they have learnt in prison to employment.
Skills workshops
The project is co-ordinated by the Construction Youth Trust, funded by the Nationwide Foundation. The prison has three workshops aimed at providing the offenders with the necessary skills: a multi-skill workshop, a bricks workshop and a concrete workshop.
This new programme provides them with the advice and skills to tackle a job interview upon release and because a key employer is involved it ensures that there are positions available upon release. The scheme is at early stages, and a programme of activity will soon be in place to ensure its success.
"Rehabilitating offenders...important responsibility"
Tim Cook, Managing Director of Hays Construction, says: “This is an important scheme for the industry and if successful it may be a small step to combat the skills shortages.
"Some of the offenders may have committed only minor crimes which doesn’t prevent them from being a good worker – rehabilitating offenders is an important responsibility for all of us in the corporate environment. We hope that this scheme will provide them with the skills and the opportunities to work within construction jobs.”
The Construction Youth Trust is a UK-wide charity working to enable young people to overcome barriers to take up training and employment in the construction and built environment sector.
The programme with Onley Prison in the West Midlands is funded by the Nationwide Foundation’s Investor Programme, which aims to provide young people who are or have been involved with the criminal justice system with a rehabilitation programme designed to obtain the skills, confidence and personal support networks to enable them to lead fulfilled and successful lives'.
