Jobless residents in Northumberland urged to seek support from fully funded training programme

Back2Work offers a range of training courses in the North East to help you get back to work within key industry sectors including construction, warehousing and customer service.

Back2Work’s Community Engagement officer Alasdair Mitton attended Thursday’s meeting of the North Northumberland Local Area Committee to explain more about the services offered.

He said: “We work with people aged 16 and over to remove barriers to employment. We operate from Newcastle to Berwick but we don’t want it all to be Newcastle-centric.

“We try to help people with anything to do with health, finance, training, volunteering – anything down to a bus to take them to the job centre. We’re just trying to get our name out and around in the community.

“If you know anyone who works in the NHS or in mental health services or at different charities, suggest them to us and we will see if they have any referrals. We work on a one-to-one basis for 16 weeks and we will travel to people.”

Mr Mitton explained that the project was funded until March, but he was hopeful of receiving more cash from the North East Combined Authority.

He continued: “We have hit every single target figure so hopefully we will get recommissioned for another two years. We had quite a big pot of money and normally these programmes don’t reach the outskirts.

“I wanted to get out here and bring some of that money to people in Northumberland.”