Every 20th November, the United Nations World Children’s Day advocates, promotes and celebrates children’s rights.
The day – chosen because it’s the date in 1959 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child – is an opportunity to raise awareness of children’s issues, and to commit to improving children’s welfare.
To mark this year’s World Children’s Day, we thought we’d share some of the work that we have been doing over the last three years to support students in our local community. Read on to find out how Altura have been working with social enterprise Circl to improve the chances of children across London.
Providing careers advice to students
Back in early 2018, our managing director, Rob, began volunteering as a career coach at a school in South London through the award-winning charity Future Frontiers. In this role, he coached half a dozen pre-GSCE students to help them identify and research an inspiring career, then build an academic plan to achieve the qualifications towards this career.
Rob says: “As an example, I talked to a group of students about how they might become an accountant – a job which none of them had even considered before. I was then able to use my contacts to ask an accountant to talk to the group, explaining what the job entails and what skills and qualifications they would need.
“I’ve spoken to dozens of students about a range of jobs, from lawyers to the back-office jobs at football clubs they had never even thought of! I even discussed a career as a medical researcher, getting a contact of mine to talk to the group about science jobs and what their specific role entailed.”
Rob also gave talks in schools to assemblies of more than 200 students. He describes this as “a rather daunting prospect” adding “although, fortunately, the subject matter of ‘Success is not a straight line’ was right up my street!”
Rob also undertook some professional expert calls, giving young people guidance on his ‘first’ career as an investment banker.
Working to develop future leaders with Circl
Following this period as a volunteer career coach, Rob then became a board adviser to Circl, a social enterprise with a mission to help university-age students from less privileged backgrounds achieve a coaching qualification, and to benefit from one-to-one coaching from someone working in business.
In simple terms, Circl volunteer professionals work with students from under-represented backgrounds to help them achieve the Leader as Coach qualification. Both the student and the professional benefit from gaining a valuable coaching qualification, while the student also receives useful mentoring advice from a professional.
Future leaders and professionals are matched through the Circl Match profiling tool, and both then join a series of group webinars, where they are also split off into a virtual break out room to practice the coaching skills together.
The programme runs over six sessions which, depending on the needs of the business and its professionals, can run over as little as three months or up to two years.
As Jack Eatherly, head of the Sky Academy, says: “Circl’s approach to developing skills whilst twinning both employees in business with underrepresented young adults is really innovative and a complete win-win. The approach is developing the critical skills that both young people and employees need to be successful leaders, now and in the future.”
The Leader as Coach is part of a suite of accreditation schemes designed to continue to drive high standards in coaching. This course includes core coaching competencies, essential coaching tools and skills and integration with existing management and leadership approaches.
Through his work with Circl, Rob has recent obtained this valuable coaching qualification.
Find out more
Circl currently work with major businesses including Facebook, Google, Innocent, and British Land.
If you or your colleagues would benefit from obtaining a valuable coaching qualification, while also coaching a student from a less privileged background and helping them to develop their skills, Circl would love to hear from you. Head to the Circl website to find out more, or speak to Rob direct!
