GQA Qualifications is lending its support to a ‘progressive and life-changing’ initiative for young people called ‘Nobody Left Behind’.

The scheme combines community sports programmes with construction-related training and qualifications to improve young people’s employment prospects for entry-level construction industry roles.

Nobody Left Behind works with groups of young people who have predominantly been social care service users and gives support to try and steer them away from dropping into gang culture.

Following a four-week programme of community sports training with household name sports stars, students move on to work towards gaining GQA’s Level 1 Award in Construction Health and Safety and the GQA construction site Labourer’s CSCS card – as well as H&S-related training such as manual handling and traffic marshalling.

Civil Engineering Careers, the agency championing the work-related training then facilitates interviews with construction employers who look to offer employment opportunities to programme participants.

GQA’s technical officer, Phil Douglas, said: “I’m pleased to be working with the programme and its participants, and I’m happy to report that GQA and Building Our Skills has provided sponsorship support to help the programme get off the ground.

“We’ve donated towards a minibus that the initiative needs to help transport young people from further across the area. We have also been asked about development into other sectors in which we work.

“I understand that Nobody Left Behind has set itself the challenge of getting 1,000 young people into employment in the next four years, and that’s a goal we’re honoured to get fully behind,” he continued.

“It’s a pleasure to see the sense of achievement on the faces of the young people when they are told they have passed their CSCS card test, and the joy in their voices when they tell their friends ‘I’m starting work on Monday.’ The initiative is a perfect fit with GQA’s philosophy of people development.”