Support with careers
The Careers and Enterprise Company
The Careers and Enterprise Company is a national organisation. They inspire and prepare young people for the fast-changing world of work. Their role is to connect schools, colleges, employers and careers programme providers.
They offer a resource directory of careers resources for young people, parents and education providers.
Their main programme is the Enterprise Adviser Network. This is delivered locally through the Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). The LEP support schools and colleges in providing high quality careers education.
Impact is measure in line with the eight Gatsby benchmarks, which enables schools and colleges to access resources that will help at every stage.
The Black Country Careers Hub
The Black Country Careers Hub works with all secondary schools, colleges and special schools in the region. The Black Country Skills Factory aims to link all Black Country secondary schools and colleges including SEND schools and pupil referral units with an enterprise adviser by July 2021.
Enterprise advisers are volunteers from businesses and the public sector. They are from organisations of all sizes, including the self-employed. They help schools and colleges build careers and enterprise and employer engagement plans, drawing on their own local business networks.
Enterprise advisers work alongside the coordinators to support schools to identify and plan actions. This ensures the schools are better able to meet the Gatsby benchmarks.
Black Country LEP SEND Community of Practise
SEND schools and mainstream secondary schools and colleges can also join the SEND Community of Practise. Workshops and meetings take place every term. There are pilot projects for schools to get involved in and showcases of best practice.
This academic year has seen:
- virtual SEND work experience
- career speaker sessions
- SEND spending SENSE workshops
- creation of a vocational profile
- creation of a SEND my choices guide
- webinars for young people and staff to join to up-skill or learn more about the world of work and education, through employer and educational talks
