This week is National Youth Work Week which is an annual celebration of youth work across the UK.
We’re recognising the important impact young people have across the country.
One of those young people is Sam Abrahams who knew that studying A Levels or BTEC's wasn’t what he wanted to do.
After hearing about the T-Level programme through Exeter College, he was encouraged to take this route as it offered him a balance between studying and practical experience.
Realising this would give him the best option to get both professional experience and academic study to further his career, he applied and was accepted onto the T-Level scheme with us.
He is encouraging others to consider it as an academic route on what is a new career option for young people.
Our T-Level for Health and Safety, Sam, said: “The T-Level courses are valuable because they bring in a wide range of perspectives, especially for the placements. You can come into companies and it's a fresh face, fresh ideas and you can always challenge convention and challenge the ideas that are already in place and inspire change within businesses.
“If you're someone who's not so academic yet but you still want to progress forward and not take a BTEC. T-levels are really important because they will go far, and they will become more renowned in other subject areas.
“I couldn't recommend this course enough. It really does springboard you into progressing your life further."
T-Levels are like A Levels in which they last two years with students having to complete at least 45 days of placement along with written reflection to pass the course.
Sam, who is studying Business Management and Administration at Exeter College, was recommended T-Levels - a new government initiative where students spend four days studying their course and one day in a work environment to prepare them for further study or work.
Student, Sam, added: “There is a major benefit in the sense that as a teenager you don't really know what the big world was like, and this is almost an element of it. But you can also still with this course, you can go on to do further education with university and still go on to do business management courses or even take this and go straight into the work.
“Because of this and the hours you get and the grades you can get with the academic side, you can really push yourself forward and go for higher and greater things.
Sam is hoping T -Levels will allow him to go on and study a university degree in Business Management.
Sam said: “LiveWest has supported me in quite a few ways. They've invested in me as a person so they were kind enough to give me my own laptop, my bag and also a health and safety kit with everything I need to be able so I can do inspections and go out in the field.
“It’s not just me being in the office but they have supported me so I can also go out in the field and see what it's like to be doing inspection. LiveWest has supported me with any questions and any queries that I've had were either resolved or we discussed for certain areas.
Sam’s mentor Shane Jones, our Health and Safety Adviser, was approached by his Line Manager to take on a T-Level student and he jumped at the chance as he thought it would be a great opportunity for the organisation to get skills like this and for him to mentor a student.
Shane Jones, Health and Safety Adviser for LiveWest, said: “The benefits for a T-Level student are the fact that they can go into their chosen industry and get a real look at life in there and spend time with different colleagues experiencing different parts of the business. Then they can choose if this is actually what I want to do or it's not what I want to do.
“So, bringing different people into the business especially at a different level, they can just help your teams along and encourage you in different ways and you get things done in a different way. It's much better.
“He gets to learn confidence, challenging innovation, trying different things that's been working really well. It brings in the fresh mind and they can help in places where you didn't know that you needed help. He's just done loads of stuff with us and we support him every step of the way.”