Bridge to Employment – Stranraer

The Bridge to Employment Programme (B2E) is BLP’s Flagship project.

It aims to give young autistic people a structured programme of person-centred accredited training in their area of interest and expertise, and work-related skills and to prepare them for the next step towards employment, self-employment, education, training or volunteering.

B2E develops unique opportunities for each young person that incorporates one or all of the following; employability skills, work experience and social enterprise.

B2E is unique to Dumfries and Galloway in terms of its delivery style and target group.  There are no clear post-school options for the target group of more able young people with ASD and related disabilities, especially for those living outside of Dumfries.  In Dumfries and Galloway, there is no specialist employability provision for this group who may have communication challenges or need some extra support to develop essential core skills such as being able to travel independently, writing job applications, attending interviews, managing social interactions and working independently.

What do we offer?

The B2E Programme offers our young people 5 interlinked core strands.  These are delivered together in a person-centred way giving the young people the best opportunity for transition:-

• Employability (SQA)
• Work Placements
• Enterprise
• Individual Tasks (including a range of ASDAN short courses)
• Environment and Climate Change (Accredited course)

B2E starts with young people and builds on their existing skills and attributes rather than focusing on a career area, so the programme they follow is tailored to suit their interests and goals.

ASDAN

So our young people can be awarded accredited certificates for their work with us, we offer a range of ASDAN courses across our 3 sites.

ASDAN offers a wide of courses and qualifications, which are targeted toward learners working over a range of levels. These programs are activity-based and offer a more flexible way of gaining qualifications and our staff are able to develop person-centred means of assessing and certificating young people’s knowledge and skills development.

In Addition?

From our person-centred work with young people we have included the following in our B2E Programme: