CHILDREN'S charity Barnardo’s is helping Halesowen’s unemployed young people to get on the career ladder.

The charity's work programme team have been preparing people for the world of work by helping write CVs and hone their interview skills.

Weekly job sessions are also taking place at the charity’s offices in Brooklands, Great Cornbow, providing one-to-one advice use of computers to complete application forms.

Lee Webb, aged 23, from Halesowen, said the programme has helped him to gauge what he wanted to do career-wise.

He said: "The work programme helped me to find volunteer work to get relevant experience.

“In the future I'd like to move into advisory roles and the work programme has helped me progress with that."

Helen Miles from Barnardo’s said the crux of the programme was to identify what barriers there may be that are stopping young people from getting on, providing the right motivation and building their confidence.

She added: “Often the young people are in desperate need of work experience to clinch success in a job interview – so we are always looking to build new links with local businesses to give them a chance.

“It’s a win-win for local firms – we can save them time and money by screening and only putting forward candidates that fulfil the requirements of any particular role. By working with Barnardo’s as a socially responsible provider, it can also help companies put something back into their local community.”

Last month alone the team helped 13 people secure jobs with local firms and they are now appealing to other businesses to come forward and offer work placements or jobs to people aged between 18 and 24, who have been unemployed for more than six months.

Any company that would like to find out more should email helen.miles2@barnardos.org.uk or call 0121 5505271.