Celtic Horizons is giving school students the chance to find out about a career in construction.
A new approach to encouraging young people to consider a career in construction has been rolled out by a housing association in South Wales.
Celtic Horizons is United Welsh’s wholly owned subsidiary and operates in partnership with Mears Group, providing maintenance services to all of United Welsh’s 6,000 homes. It has been using a Schools’ Toolkit to show pupils the depth and breadth of jobs available in the construction industry.
The Schools Toolkit concept was the brainchild of Mears Group executive director, Jane Nelson, and devised in conjunction with female apprentices working at Mears and Celtic Horizons, which was also keen to find a way to encourage women into the repairs and maintenance sector. Funding from the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) helped get the initiative off the ground.
The toolkits, which tie into the schools’ curriculum, cover activities such as carpentry, electrics and plumbing, giving pupils a chance to learn about the different trades in the maintenance and construction industry.
Celtic Horizons hosted its first Schools’ Toolkit session at Lewis Girls Comprehensive School in Ystrad Mynach as it also wants to encourage girls and women to consider the sector as a potential career.
During the sessions, which are run by plumbers, electricians and multi-skilled tradespeople from Celtic Horizons, pupils are also given the chance to gain hands-on experience of tasks such as wallpapering, painting and tiling.
Originally aimed at Key Stages Two, Three and Four, the workshops can be adapted to suit participants’ needs. As a result, Celtic Horizons has also been working with Careers Wales based in Caerphilly to widen out the scope of the workshops to include those who have already left school as well as those looking for a job.
Rebecca Evans, customer experience assistant for Celtic Horizons said: ‘The pupils seem to particularly like the hands-on tasks where they get practical experience of skills such as plumbing, wallpapering and painting.
‘Our team go equipped with their toolboxes and show pupils and students how to do typical home maintenance tasks before letting them loose and giving them the chance to see how they get on themselves.
‘Our tradespeople really enjoy getting out and about and helping to equip the young people with new skills and they say it is very rewarding. As a result, over the next 12 months we’re hoping to work with partners such as the Salvation Army and Job Centres to reach an even wider audience.’
With around one in six construction workers due to retire over the next few years, the construction industry is facing a real skills vacuum.
Currently only around 13 per cent of the construction industry is made up of women and only 1 per cent of tradespeople are women.
Group chief executive of United Welsh, Lynda Sagona, added: ‘We want to play our part in promoting maintenance and construction as a positive career choice and visiting schools gives us the opportunity to share experiences and demonstrate that working in construction is about more than laying bricks.
‘Celtic Horizons employs several tradeswomen and they are acting as fantastic role models when they deliver the Schools Toolkit sessions. We hope that helps ensure that the construction sector is increasingly diverse at trade level.
‘The sessions have been really successful so far and Celtic Horizons is looking forward to holding many more.’