It has never been more important to support young people’s routes into employment.
The environment workforce is one of least diverse workforces in England. Young people from deprived areas, BAME groups and disadvantaged backgrounds have fewer opportunities to experience nature and the outdoors at an early age, affecting their engagement with the natural environment in later life.
Through the Generation Green project, we committed to doing things differently, ensuring lasting change in the sector.
Creating new jobs
The Generation Green project enabled us to create 15 new jobs, including project management roles with YHA and youth engagement roles across the National Parks.
The name ‘Generation Green’ says it all – we built a legacy of engagement to benefit those who would otherwise not have the opportunity to enjoy, respect and conserve nature.
Cressida Allwood
Project Manager: Generation Green, YHA
Some of the new jobs included:
- Engagement Ranger, Peak District
- Finance Officer, YHA
- Project Manager, National Parks
- Project Manager, YHA
- Learning & Engagement Activity Leader, Lake District
- Learning & Development Manager, Exmoor
- Project Officer, Broads
- Wild Places Youth Project Officer, New Forest
- Youth Engagement Leader, North York Moors
- Youth Engagement Officer, Northumberland
- Youth Volunteer Officer, Yorkshire Dales
Retaining existing roles
While access to nature was heavily impacted by the pandemic, we were able to retain 20 existing roles.
We retained two members of staff to deliver this exciting project at Girlguiding, getting more young people engaging with nature!
Louise Barkes
Project Manager, Girlguiding
I feel extremely lucky. I love helping to train instructors to support young people to experience the outdoors.
Lucy Oram
Project Co-ordinator, Scouts
Developing apprenticeships
Through the Generation Green programme, we created seven apprenticeships. These enabled young people to start their careers and gain experience in vital specialist areas.
YHA (England & Wales)
YHA successfully recruited five apprentices to join their National Office team to build YHA’s capacity for future years and start their careers in vital specialist areas.
These apprentices received an excellent learning experience, including on-the-job training and project work, across a range of specialist disciplines.
Apprentices are full-time staff who take one day a week for training in skills and knowledge relevant to their role. YHA apprenticeships are typically 12-18 month roles.
National Parks (New Forest)
New Forest National Park recruited two apprentices. They spent time with six of the main New Forest ranger teams - NFNPA, Forestry England, National Trust, Hampshire County Council, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, and RSPB.
Through a 2-3 month placement with each partner, apprentices gained experience in a variety of ranger work from public engagement and event delivery to site maintenance and practical habitat management. Apprentices also worked towards the Countryside Worker Standard via Kingston Maurward College, Dorchester.
We were excited to go live with our advertisement for five apprenticeship opportunities with YHA supporting the Generation Green project. Amazingly, four were offered and accepted within a month!
Dawn Holden
Recruitment and Training Manager, YHA (England & Wales)
Supporting new talent
Through project funding, the Field Studies Council recruited a paid intern to work on their Generation Green activities. Zoology postgraduate Bek supported the rollout of subsidised online and centre-based courses targeted at 18-25 year olds.
It is a difficult sector to gain experience as there are so few roles, particularly within bio-diversity.
Bek Trehern
Engagement and Training Assistant (Internship), Field Studies Council
Training for career development
Career development training was available to all apprentices, Kickstart trainees, placement students, and any other (youth) trainees and ambassadors while ‘on placement’, in addition to a variety of volunteer opportunities across all partners.
Hundreds of skilled volunteering roles were available across all the project partners, as well as micro-volunteering opportunities, such as bug hotels and tree planting, and many opportunities for self-guided learning.
National Parks (Northumberland)
Career development training was offered in a ‘blended’ learning environment with a mixture of one-to-one and group learning sessions, and personal online study using the National Parks online training platform.
Face-to-face sessions included CV writing workshops, how to complete (effective) application forms, plus interview skills and advice. Online training was available on health and safety, data protection, equality, wellbeing and more.