I have recently been working closely with Peterborough City Council and looking at ways we can help people 18-25 years old to get into work and gain experience of working life and the ‘real world of work’.

The conversations began because I was looking at a way of bringing VisionShift to the city centre, further to this we realised that I have a group of contacts that are keen to help in the community but are not sure how. This then resulted in the discussion of work experience placements for Princes Trust candidates.

Ella and Laura at Peterborough City Council are running work experience from Monday 12th June for 2 weeks and have requests from candidates keen to experience the working life in areas such as hairdressing, catering, gardening, hospitality, childcare, catering, retail, school, retail, animal care, painting, warehouse, making signs, hair and beauty and more.

Are you able to help young people work in these industries by allowing them to work for you and experience the workplace for just two weeks? This means you can gain an extra pair of hands for two weeks at no cost, while it may take time to show them the ropes they could easily shadow someone and literally work as an extra pair of hands.

Then, at the end of the 2 weeks you would write a report or reference for them detailing the work that they did for you, their attitude to work and such like. Your reference could help them land their dream job, or maybe you could find that they are exactly the spark you need for your company and look into a way of employing them or extending their work experience?

These young people will be between 18 and 25 years old so we are not talking about school children that in some cases need a lot of hand holding; instead you could gain a very able person in your team for at least 2 weeks.

Please contact me directly if you think you may be able to help; [email protected]