We’ve retained our Charter for People with Lived Experience silver award, which recognises our commitment to providing career opportunities for vulnerable and disadvantaged young people, particularly those who have been in care, and/or involved in crime.

We were first awarded our charter, developed by Career Matters, which works to improve opportunities for young adults not in traditional education or career paths, in the pilot phase of the project last year.

We are the only acute NHS Trust to achieve a silver award and have improved our points score – putting us in touching distance of achieving gold accreditation when our charter status is reviewed in three years.

Assessors were impressed by how we’ve continued to improve how we help vulnerable young people into work. We first introduced our volunteer programme in 2020, as a six-month placement after which, young people were registered with our in-house staff bank, giving them the chance the get paid employment in our hospitals.

We’ve now expanded the programme, which sits under our Education and Training team, to include work coaching as well as linking to our apprenticeships, opening up further opportunities.

Gary Etheridge, our Director of Patient Experience, said; “I am so proud we have retained our silver award and got an even better score this year.

“We are passionate about building our own workforce locally, and for some time now have been offering opportunities to young people who may otherwise struggle to find employment. Our volunteer programme benefits those who find jobs, and also our Trust as it helps us to fill roles with dedicated people. It’s great that we have been recognised for this, and are the only acute NHS Trust to gain a silver award.”

The charter projest was originally commissioned by NHS England, Health and Justice, which is responsible for comissioning healthcare for children and young people across secure and detained settings.