Rotherham United

NCS is renowned for equipping young people with the skills and experiences necessary to boost their futures prospects and make them more employable. Once participants have completed NCS, they have the opportunity to become an NCS Graduate. As an NCS Graduate, young people are given training and provided with volunteering opportunities to help further their progress and development post-NCS. Being an NCS Graduate carries with it a certain status recognised by employers nationwide and RUCST are proud to announce the launch of their brand new NCS Graduates Programme.

The programme itself is a 5-stranded model comprised of different elements, each allowing Graduates to specialise in the area(s) they wish to develop and improve upon. With a staggering 126 of our 352 summer NCS participants expressing interest in being a Graduate, we have put in place an application process whereby Graduates have to apply for the area(s) of the programme that they wish to be a part of. For some elements, this requires both the submission of an application from as well as a 2 minute video to camera describing themselves and the qualities they could bring to this specific element of the programme.

Youth Board: This will be a local youth board made up of RUCST NCS Graduates. Members will meet once a month and will discuss how to make the NCS programme better for future participants. Members should represent the interests and opinions of other NCS Graduates and ideally consist of a mix of spring, summer and autumn Graduates. There will be a chance for at least one member of this board to sit on a regional youth board (Yorkshire and Humber), influencing regional NCS programme decisions. From this there may be a chance for members to progress onto a national NCS youth board, going down to parliament in London.

Media and Marketing: A team of NCS Graduates will assist the RUCST NCS Team in the designing and preparing of NCS marketing material. Our vision is to build a media team capable of coming away with us on NCS programmes to capture the content of the programme. This will include taking photos, making videos and writing press releases. We will provide training so that this team of Graduates are equipped with the necessary skills. We also want to own our own RUCST NCS YouTube channel and Facebook page and we see these being ‘active’ with regular updates, videos, pictures and more, helping to inspire young people to take part in our NCS programme. 

Youth Work/Team Assistant: Graduates will undertake an Introduction to Youth Work with a view to completing a Level 2 in Youth Work training. Graduates will also attend other workshops including Managing Challenging Behaviour; Mental Health awareness training and Multi-sport Street Games coaching. These will help equip our Graduates with knowledge and skills required to be a Team Assistant. In addition to this, Graduates will be asked to have input on our ‘keep warm’ activities and may even be asked to plan and deliver some along with other fellow Graduates as good practice for the role of Team Assistant. 
Recruitment: Graduates will help RUCST NCS staff members recruit participants for NCS. This could entail presenting at assemblies at their OLD or CURRENT place of education, acting as an NCS Ambassador in your current place of education, assisting RUCST staff on their recruitment stalls as well as brainstorming other recruitment strategies that the RUCST NCS Team haven’t thought of.

Social Action Project Planning/Delivery/Volunteering: This role will include speaking to charities and organisations in and around Rotherham to help the RUCST NCS Team establish new social action project partners. Graduates will also help maintain existing and develop new social action projects. They will also be kept informed of any volunteering opportunities with our partner organisations and will be signposted to volunteer at their events. 

We are very much looking forward to receiving our Graduates application forms and videos and be sure to watch this space for the launch of our new NCS social media pages! “NCS…it all starts at YES!”

For more information on the NCS graduate programme, please contact:

Ruth Dobson
rdobson@rotherhamunited.net
01709 827767