Building a future

Jamie Hepburn left school at 15, but he hadn't really been there that much before then. He'd sat two exams, had no job and wasn't really sure what he was going to do. Living with his sister in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, he was skint and what little money he did have went on drink. With no intention of being so, Jamie was a poster boy for NEETs, the 35,000 young people across Scotland who are Not in Education, Employment or Training.

But Jamie has turned his life around, albeit with some help.

As I wait for him to arrive at the industrial lot in Paisley, headquarters of Barnardo's Youthbuild, the rain thuds against the metal roof. There's a pool table and some beaten-up armchairs, cabinets and the odd tool here and there, and the walls are hung with giant posters of young people looking industrious in reflective vests and hard hats. The atmosphere is somewhere between community centre and foreman's site office.

Youthbuild Paisley, set up almost nine years ago, helps young people from deprived areas find jobs in the construction industry. Partnering with local businesses, the project helps young people like Jamie to get the qualifications needed for the building trade and, through a six-month process of support, to take the first steps towards getting a job, earning their own wage and living independently. It's a big challenge for a group of teenagers who are often disaffected and cynical, and that makes its success rate all the more remarkable.

Of the 18 young people taken on each year in Paisley, as many as 75 per cent can expect to be in independent employment by the end of their stint. Youthbuild in Dundee, which opened in September last year and involves Scottish and Southern Energy, boasts even higher success rates, and another project set to open in the Highlands on 4 August will be aiming to do the same.

Jamie, 17, arrives straight from work, dodging through the torrential rain. He's tall with short, spiky hair, touched with blond at the tips. With diamond studs in his ears, his jeans slung low and a pristine tracksuit top, he chats to project worker Elaine Beaton about his day while eyeing up the neat little triangles of sandwiches on the table. For a 17-year-old boy, he's confident and charming; the fact that he had little going for him only a matter of months ago makes him even more impressive.

When Jamie talks about Youthbuild, it's with the enthusiasm of a teenager talking about his new games console or latest trainers. "It's changed my life around," he says with utter sincerity. Now working full-time in the building trade, he earns his own money, pays digs to his gran with whom he now lives, and is saving up for driving lessons. "If I hadn't come to Youthbuild, I'd probably still be on the dole," he says, before adding with a wary smile, "I'd probably still be in my bed."

The number of NEETs in Scotland has remained almost static for the past decade. According to last month's school leavers' statistics, it hasn't budged despite the government's More Choices, More Chances initiative, which aims to reduce the number of young Scots not in a job, on a training scheme or in education by this year.

NEETs are more likely to be male than female, they may be young people who have left care and they may well have children of their own. They're unlikely to have done well at school, they may have been involved in offending and they'll often have a history of truanting: the kind of young people who attract negative headlines. As government ministers acknowledge, if Scotland doesn't get to grips with the problem, we're storing up a generation who tend to experience long-term unemployment and exclusion throughout their lives, costing society, socially and economically.

Once upon a time, Jamie ticked a few of the NEET boxes, as did the other young people who've gone through the Youthbuild programme and are now in jobs working for their living and thriving.

The Youthbuild strategy is simple. Young people between 16 and 24 are referred by agencies – Job Centre Plus or Careers Scotland – or they can ask to become part of Youthbuild themselves. Once they're accepted, they have three months to build their confidence, pass their Construction Service Certification Scheme (essential for working on a building site) and find a placement with a local firm. In the three months after that they'll work full-time, with a mentor onsite and support from a Youthbuild case worker. Their wages – negotiated by Youthbuild to ensure they're the going rate – are paid by Youthbuild and their employer. Other than that, it's up to them. They have to turn up on time, work hard, get on with their colleagues and hopefully get kept on full-time. For young people with no track record of succeeding, it's some feat. The fact that three-quarters of them manage it is extraordinary.

For Elizabeth McShane, who was involved at the very beginning of Youthbuild Paisley but who is now assistant director, developments, at Barnardo's, the personal touch is key to the project's success. Sitting in the tiny meeting room, a mug of tea in her hand, she says: "In that early phase, when they first come along, we're really in their lives, we're really involved in what they're doing." From phoning in the morning to make sure they're up and ready to go, to arranging for help when there are difficulties, for some of the young people this hands-on style is a challenge, but for most it's what they need and want. McShane tells the story of one young man who started off well at his placement before slipping back. "He started to turn up late, then not at all," she says, "so Youthbuild bought him an alarm clock and things improved. Then they slipped again. It turned out that the boy's mum had smashed the alarm clock because it was waking her up too.

"You can't assume that because someone is wanting to achieve something that everyone around them is supporting that," McShane says.

Lack of opportunity, poor self-esteem, poverty, low aspirations and a negative experience at school unite the young people who come the way of the Paisley project. "Within that though, you've got some who've been involved in offending, some who have drug and alcohol issues, mental health issues and many are parents so they've got parental responsibilities."

Young people with problems and the hard knock atmosphere of building sites may not be an obvious match but McShane's seen enough of the success stories to know that it works. "At times we've been surprised as well, but you'd be amazed at what empathy there is for young people who are struggling.

"The construction industry is male-dominated and it has a culture that's attractive to young men," she says. "I think that's good. We can make that link for them and once they buy into it because they enjoy the work they're doing and they like their colleagues, then they'll be much more driven than if you involved them in something they're less interested in.

"There's nothing better than seeing someone come in here with their first wage packet," she says. "Or watching people literally physically change: standing up straighter, looking you right in the eye because they've got a new confidence. It really matters."

Back through at the pool table Toni Canning, 19, and her three-year-old son, Jordan, have arrived. Damp from the rain but looking amazingly fresh for someone who's worked a long day on site before picking up her son from nursery, Toni is small and pretty. With her hair pulled back and Jordan wrapped around her legs, a soft, bashed-up rabbit toy in his hands, she looks young for her age.

Toni has lived on her own with Jordan for two years. Working full-time and caring for Jordan – a lovely boy with blond curly hair who chatters constantly – is hard work, she says, but she wouldn't have it any other way. Dressed in jeans, a vest top and hooded sweatshirt, she's still wearing her high visibility gilet which denotes that she's a dumper truck driver.

"I feel better about myself by being out at work every day now," she says. "I see people, and that's really my socialising."

Before starting with Youthbuild last August, she had been unemployed for a year. "As much as I was saying I need a job, I need a job, I need some money, I don't think I would've been able to do it on my own. There were too many barriers with not having enough childcare and I didn't have any experience of the construction industry. If I'd gone to an employer with no qualifications and no experience I wouldn't have got anywhere. Youthbuild made it possible."

Interested in scaffolding and engineering at school, Toni never found any encouragement for such careers and although she liked school "most of the time", things changed when she fell pregnant at 15. "I managed to sit my Standard Grades and then I had Jordan in the summer holidays." After some tutoring, she went back to school to do Highers in Physics and Maths and got a chance to get on to an engineering traineeship, but it didn't work out and she ended up unemployed.

"I've always been into doing hands-on work," she says, smiling. "I went for an engineering apprenticeship but I couldn't make the second test so I missed out. It was after that, that I came to Youthbuild and they got me into construction."

As well as driving dumper trucks, Toni works with kerbing squads, drainage and slabbing. It sounds like heavy work. "It is," she says. "It's hard work and long hours and it's tiring, but I enjoy it, so it's worth it."

During her training, Toni has worked on a lot of different sites and met plenty of construction workers. Only once, she says, did an older man working on a site seem shocked to see her, but apart from that one incident, she's never had any hassle. "I get on really well with them all," she says. "We have a good laugh and there's plenty of banter. I think they respect me more because I get on and do my job."

I ask if she's come across women at work and she tells me that when she first started there was one other woman, which helped her to settle in. "I've seen a few women electricians on the sites and apparently there are a few welders," she says. "I've been told that in Aberdeen all the steel fixers are women."

Talking to Toni and Jamie, it's clear that working is about a lot more than earning money: it's about who they are and who they want to be. They talk about their "brilliant" colleagues and outline the details of their work as though they're this year's coolest band.

By the end of next month there will be three Youthbuild projects around Scotland, each with a capacity for 18 young people a year. That's between 40 and 50 young people finding jobs and careers, which is a lot better than none, but still leaves a long way to go to reduce the 35,000 young people who are stuck in limbo with diminishing prospects.

"I've given my gran money to save for me for driving lessons," says Jamie. "I want to get my licence." He also wants to get his digger ticket when he's 18. And as far as his personal life is concerned, his ambitions are predictable but in a way all the more impressive for that. "Hopefully when I'm a bit older I'd like my own house and to be settled. Or something like that..." Well, he's only 17. sm