£100k Mid and East Antrim funding for ‘employment academies’

These include training in hospitality and catering, health and social care, welding, childminding and starting up in retail.

The academies were organised to provide unemployed and under-employed people in the borough with access to local employment opportunities and to attain accredited qualifications.

The Hospitality and Catering Skills Academy will train 40 participants overall. The first course commenced in September. The first group of candidates is working to complete a basic food hygiene certificate. A second group started this month.

The Health and Social Care Academy is expected to commence later this month for 30 participants.

A welding academy will be delivered in partnership with Northern Regional College and is a five-week intensive reskilling training course.

However, it has experienced “significant delays” due to Covid restrictions and the need to ensure that social distancing measures can be implemented at NRC. There are 13 applicants with seven spaces remaining.

There are nine participants in the ‘Get into Childminding’ academy. Two have completed training and have established their own businesses.

The ‘Start up in Retail’ Academy was launched in September.  This academy includes webinars and mentoring.

It is hoped that these academies will result in getting 70 people into employment.

A virtual jobs fair held last week was supported by 17 employers offering 537 jobs and attended by 131 job seekers.

Alliance Coast Road Alderman Gerardine Mulvenna described the uptake as “very encouraging and good to see”.

Larne Lough DUP Councillor Gregg McKeen said he welcomed “training and retraining” and emphasised the need for the council to offer “whatever support we can” in light of the Caterpillar redundancies announcement.

Click here to read: Major blow for Larne as Caterpillar plans to cut 700 jobs

Michelle Weir, Local Democracy Reporter

--

Thank you for reading this article. We’re more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

Please consider purchasing a copy of the paper. You can also support trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription of the News Letter.