Young people transforming houses to homes

Published by Laura Beckett for Halton Housing Trust in Housing and also in Communities, Education, Environment

Wednesday 10th October 2012 - 5:12pm

Aiden Parker, 17, previously completed the void placement programme and he is now doing an apprenticeship at PIP. He is pictured with John Maddox, Area Maintenance Manager and Claire Bradbury, Chief Executive at PIP.

Ten 16 to 18 year olds from the Runcorn based Power in Partnership project are helping to transform void properties into habitable homes on a paid work placement, designed to help them gain real work experience and improve their future job chances.

As well as clearing gardens and cleaning empty properties owned by Halton Housing Trust, the hard working group has been testing out their construction skills, supervised by trained Trust employees.

John Maddox, Area Maintenance Manager at Halton Housing Trust thinks that the partnership has benefited everyone involved:

“We wanted to give these guys a chance to gain practical work experience but they are also helping us – we’ve been able to bring many empty properties and gardens to a suitable standard ready for new customers.”

“I’ve been really impressed with their attitude; the group have worked hard and I would consider them for any roles that come up in the future.”

Based in the Old Town area of Runcorn, the Power in Partnership, (PIP) project helps hard to reach NEETS, (young people not in work, training or education) improve their future job prospects by offering a range of courses funded by Riverside College.

Chief Executive of PIP, Claire Bradbury, says that many of the young people she works with lack any qualifications or skills: “The uniqueness of those who join the project is that they don’t have any qualifications or CV. After gaining their qualifications with us, they then want to find a job but without real experience it’s hard. Halton Housing Trust are solving this problem and filling in the gap, making them more marketable and boosting their confidence.”

Halton Housing Trust is committed to helping local people improve their life and wealth chances. The Trust regularly offers work placements to a wide cross section of people such as local men Derek Tuer, 49, and Mark Heymans, 43, who recently completed a two month placement in the Trust’s landscaping team.

The Trust also employs ten apprentices who work across a variety of different departments ranging from Construction Services through to Human Resources and Housing Services and provides paid internships where young people experience work in a number of different areas.