Dream Placement week provides life-changing opportunities for young people in Cumbria
Over the February half-term, 64 ambitious young people from across the whole of Cumbria took part in their Dream Placement week with their host companies.
Dream Placement is Cumbria’s unique leadership and work experience programme organised by the Centre for Leadership Performance in collaboration with businesses, schools and colleges across the county. The programme is designed to showcase the breadth of career opportunities within Cumbria to 16-18 year olds, whilst also providing them with an insight into leadership capability and the opportunities to develop their own skills and confidence over the 6-month programme.
Dream Placement 2022 saw a record number of students offered placements due to the high calibre of applications, and the incredible support from the organisations who contribute to the programme. This year CforLP worked with a record-breaking 38 companies from across the county, to deliver a memorable and unique placement week to the students. The companies who offered placements in February were:
Age UK West Cumbria, Allerdale Borough Council, Barrow Borough Council, 32West, Actemium, Carlisle City Council, Carr’s Engineering, BEPDT, Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, Costain Group, Cumbria Tourism, Doosan Babcock, Energus, The Family Business Network, Gen2, Whitehaven Harbour Commissioners, Holmen Iggesund, Jacobs, James Fisher Nuclear, John Stevenson MP, KAEFER, Lakes College, Mott MacDonald, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, National Nuclear Laboratory, Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, North Lakes Hotel & Spa, Responsive Ltd, Nuclear Waste Services (formerly RWM and LLWR), Sellafield Ltd, Simon Rogan Restaurants, Soundwave, Story Contracting, The Cumberland Building Society, Trudy Harrison MP, University of Cumbria, and Westinghouse.
Cumbria Chamber welcomed Alice Walton to our organisation in February. The student was tasked with interviewing a number of our board members for our ‘meet the Team’ section of the website. We wanted to share the stories of some of our board members and thought it was a perfect time for them to also inspire the next generation while giving valuable skills of interviewing, note taking, content creation and presentation to Alice.
Cumbria Chamber Business Growth Manager, Eve Halliday, on their Dream Placement experience says:
“I was impressed with Alice as soon as I met her, actually I was impressed with all the students. I knew Alice would fit into our organisation and team and she did just that. I tasked her with a project to interview our board members to give us some content for the website. The whole thing was her responsibility end to end. She researched the questions, came up with a short list then conducted the interviews, made notes and created the content which is now on our website. Our board members were incredibly impressed with her and how eloquent and curious she was – they event commented how difficult some of the questions were to answer! We’ve been delighted with the work she’s produced and hope to welcome her back for future work experience.’’
The feedback from the students and companies involved has been fantastic, with some real-life projects being worked on so that young people and businesses mutually benefit from the programme. To learn more about the projects visit www.dreamplacement.org.uk/noticeboard/dream-placement-2022-student-projects/
Everyone involved with the programme will be invited to the Dream Placement Showcase event at Energus on Thursday 17th March. The event is the opportunity for the students and companies to share their experiences, highlight their achievements and a chance to continue to build their networks.
All of the students will continue their journey with CforLP through the Cumbria Future Leaders network, which engages Cumbria’s young adults and supports them as they transition into employment or higher education. Find out more at www.cumbriafutureleaders.org.uk
To register your interest for Dream Placement 2023, please contact Nicola.woolley@cforlp.org.uk
© Cumbria Chamber of Commerce