vTalent Year Graduation

Derby and Derby City vTalent Year particpants with the Minister, Angela Smith MP and Tom Levitt MP

v, the Minister for the Third Sector, Angela Smith MP and MP’s from across the parties recently gathered in central London to congratulate the nearly 400 young people graduating from v’s innovative full-time programme, vTalent Year - currently being piloted in 33 local authorities and 28 Further Education colleges. See pictures of the ceremony here.

Coming from across England, each young person received the Prime Minister’s Award for National Civic Service, recognising and rewarding their full-time voluntary service to support the work of, among other things; nurseries, children and youth centres, youth crime prevention, asylum seeker and substance misuse teams. Watch the graduates talking about their work.

Entertainment on the day came from pop star Bashy and dance group Subcrew.

Dance group Sub Crew performing at the vTalent Year graduation ceremony

Nearly 60% of the volunteers were not in education, employment or training prior to starting the programme and came from all walks of life, including young offenders, young parents, care leavers and graduates. Having gained experience and an accredited qualification, many of the young volunteers are already progressing on to further study, training or employment.  The vtalent year experience is set to be an important milestone in their future careers and educational endeavours; hear from the young people.

Terry Ryall, v’s Chief Executive, who co-presented at the graduation ceremony, commented: “Volunteering unleashes young peoples’ talents, gives them a fantastic array of new skills and experience, whilst empowering young people to shape the places where they live”.

Richmond vTalent Year group with Susan Kramer MP

The high quality, structured placements in areas such as nursery education, play, youth work and supporter learning last 44 weeks, lead to a minimum of a level 2 qualification and offer personal development grants of up to £1,500 for young volunteers on completion of the programme. Interim findings from the programme will be available in Autumn 2010.