King's Lynn armed forces charity launches paid work placements for young people

A Lynn armed forces charity has joined the government's new Kickstart initiative for young people aged 16-24 to offer paid six-month work placements to those on Universal Credit.

The scheme will provide an opportunity to learn valuable skills and gain work experience with Scotty's Little Soldiers, which supports bereaved armed forces children.

Stuart Robinson, Scotty’s CEO, said: “The charity has developed a lot, particularly over the past eighteen months, and there is room for plenty more growth. The Kickstart scheme is a great opportunity for young people to gain experience working with an incredible team and we have some really interesting roles to fill.”

The charity has a range of work placement roles available including graphic design, fundraising, ecommerce and content creation of blogs and podcasts. The six month placements will require 25 hours per week at the national minimum wage, this wage will be paid by the government.

Stuart said: “The Kickstart scheme works really well for us as a charity, as well as providing young people with a great opportunity. As the team grows, we are able to offer more support to more members, raise awareness of our work and develop our income streams through fundraising and grants. To have people on board, with their salaries funded by the government for 6 months, is hugely beneficial to us financially.”

“We currently have a graphic designer who originally came to Scotty’s on an internship. He wasn’t being paid, but he wanted to gain experience. He was so great that we ended up offering him a full-time paid job because we realised we couldn’t manage without him. He’s so busy that we actually now feel we need another graphic designer!”

The charity, which originally provided respite breaks for bereaved families and helped to connect Forces families through special events. Now the charity also provides emotional support, wellbeing care, educational support and grants.

The scheme marks the beginning of an exciting expansion for Scotty's Little Soldiers, now in its eleventh year the charity is also recruiting and has a number of full time paid roles available.

Stuart said: “We draw inspiration from many places and follow closely the business models employed by the likes of Gymshark, Netflix and Uber, all of whom have experienced phenomenal growth in the last decade and are much closer to our own life cycle stage than much more mature organisations like Cancer Research UK or Oxfam for example. Our culture is much more ‘San Francisco Tech Start-Up’ than traditional UK charity.”

For details on opportunities with the charity, go to www.scottyslittlesoldiers.co.uk/jobs