Leeds Rhinos Foundation in partnership with Digital Me will be offering young people the chance to demonstrate their employability skills as part of the Open Badge Academy, which provides online recognition of skills and achievements gained through volunteering.
As a registered provider of the Open Badge Academy, Leeds Rhinos Foundation will be offering personalised Rhinos Open Badges that can be gained through work experience on match days and other volunteering opportunities to support participants in evidencing work skills and competency.
In the build up to the programme being offered out to young people nationally aged 12 and upwards from September, Leeds Rhinos Foundation have been working with 15 Young people on a pilot version of the programme, which last week saw the group benefit from a chance to interview Leeds Rhinos star Brett Delaney.
Working through badges designed to demonstrate self-awareness, being driven, self-assured and being resilient, the group designed questions to ask a sports star and were then given the opportunity to undertake interviews with Delaney about his career in the style of a press conference.
The Leeds Rhinos Foundation badge academy has also provided badges involving volunteering on match days to support the work being done by full time Leeds Rhinos Foundation staff working with community clubs and schools.
The programme, which has been funded by Digital Me will help young people showcase their employment and training skills through employer endorsement to open up localised work or further training opportunities for participants.
Project Tutor at Leeds Rhinos Foundation Chris Barr commented:
“We’ve had a really encouraging start to being part of the Open Badge Academy, successfully working through a pilot programme which has been well received by our first participants. The group have worked through a number of coursework and volunteering related badges and enjoyed a particular highlight with our session involving Brett Delaney.”
To register your interest in being involved in the Leeds Rhinos Foundation Open Badge Academy contact Chris.Barr@leedsrhinosfoundation.org