Reconnect Kent Built Environment

Over the Covid period, numbers of apprenticeships taken up by 16-19-year-olds in the built environment sector has declined. Young people have been significantly impacted in terms of employment opportunities and are likely to remain so for several years. One of the biggest growth sectors in the county will be the built environment with major projects such as Ebbsfleet Garden City, The Lower Thames Crossing and others. This represents a massive opportunity for Kent's young people, but many are unaware of the opportunities. To enable young people to benefit from these opportunities, we wish to commission a project to: • Raise awareness of opportunities in the sector. • Provide information on how to access career opportunities. • Generate a pipeline of qualified and experienced young people. • Help young people develop relevant skills. • Enable young people to have encounters with employers/employees and have experiences to help them secure employment. • Support schools to meet Gatsby benchmarks and other requirements.

We would like to commission a provider to run a campaign for Kent's young people to achieve these aims.

Activities/Processes • The bidder should run 2 events. They should be interactive and inspirational, offering information about career opportunities in the sector, encounters with employers/employees and interactive activities. One event should cover the North and West of the county, the other, the South and East. The Ebbsfleet Development Corporation has already agreed to support a North Kent event, they have started discussions with potential venues who may be able to host free of charge. As well as this, other organisations have been approached to see if they would support the project. Lower Thames Crossing has agreed to support the project and attend events. • Encourage sector businesses and organisations to offer activities to young people. Examples of activities could include employer talks, site visits, skills masterclasses, webinars, recording videos of young employees about how they entered their profession and what work is like. • Create a communications arc for the remainder of the academic year that helps maximise the impact of any events and activities. • Create and promote sector resources - many already exist but they need curating and promoting to the Kent market. Kent specific resources would be useful where there are gaps. Either the bidder could create them or encourage businesses and sector organisations to create them. • Partner with The Education People (TEP) to offer sessions in schools to support students to prepare for events. It is our experience that young people often arrive at events unprepared. We wish to avoid this. This may be delivered virtually but it would also be useful to work with TEP's engagement officers to develop a session that they can deliver face to face in schools. • Stimulate the sector to offer a range of events and opportunities which will be promoted as part of this campaign. Bidder