Pioneering IT & cybersecurity training helps get young people ‘back on track’

A pioneering Cyber Training Course, run by West Midlands Regional Cyber Crime Unit, The CyberHub Trust charity and cyber experts, The BIT Group, came to a close with the successful attendees receiving their certificates of completion with smiles.

The course gave attendees – all young people who had been involved in the West Midlands’ Offender Management Programme – a unique opportunity to gain the skills needed for exciting careers in IT and cybersecurity.

Collecting their completion certificates, the 16-19 year olds, had attended the course both virtually and at the CyberHub, on Birmingham Metropolitan College’s Matthew Bouton campus. The course taught them technical skills, but also offered mentorship and support from the West Midlands Regional Cyber Crime Unit team, to help guide them onto positive pathways. It also provided them with employability skills to achieve the careers they want to go after in IT and cybersecurity.

Michael Klonowski, CEO of The CyberHub Trust, commented: “Working with this group of young people is exactly what the CyberHub Trust is passionate about doing. We want to help those deemed to be ‘at risk’ and who need support to access training and employment – while also securing a pipeline of talent and skills in cyber and digital. We are extremely grateful to have the support of our partners, for whom this is also a priority. By coming together in this way to deliver training and offer support, the positive impact on people’s lives will be significant. So many career opportunities are available in these expanding sectors and we want to ensure that everyone, from all backgrounds, get the chance to access them.”

The training course was a pilot project, funded by the Home Office via the West Midlands Regional Cyber Crime Unit and formally completed on Monday 19th June.

Adrian Bacon, from the West Midlands Cyber Crime Unit, adds: “We are focused on helping young people to turn their lives around – and to do this, we need to ensure that they have the opportunity to gain relevant skills, experience and knowledge. This initiative did just that. Crucially it focused on softer employability skills as well as the technical cyber and IT skills – for example, understanding how to present yourself in a workplace and using social media sensibly. Funding from the Home Office made this possible, I have no doubt that the young people who participated will benefit immensely and go on to have exciting careers.”