Seven volunteer work guests visited Oakhill Secure Training Centre to meet with eight young offenders aged 14-17.  The guests came from local companies including Arrow Electronics, Dentons LLP UKMEA, MyJobMatcher and Network Rail.

The session proved to be uplifting for the young people.  All said afterwards that it had been enjoyable.

“Life skills are important,” said one.  “I’ve learned it’s important to always make eye contact.”

“It was good to hear how people got their jobs and how to start looking for them,” said another.

Another young person said:  “It was good that people cared about us and came into the centre to help us.”

All the guests also enjoyed the session and ‘felt valued’, according to post-session evaluation.  Five out of seven strongly agreed “I now feel more positive about my work.”

“I loved it,” said one guest.  “The young men were great, really engaging.  I’d love to come back.”

“They were bright and receptive,” said another.

“I took away a lot from the young men and they have great vision,” said another guest.

Fraser Davidson, Oakhill’s Enrichment & Community Reparation Team Leader who organised the visit, said:  “It was a good opportunity to expose our young people to positive roles models from the community.  We would like to explore the opportunity to continue the partnership with Worktree as we can see the benefit to our young people and the centre as a whole.”