Growing Ambitions - career speaker volunteering in education

Welcome to Growing Ambitions!

Are you willing to speak to young people near you about your job and career for half and hour? Click here

Are you looking for career speakers for your secondary school, college or university? Click here

This unique UK-wide volunteering initiative puts real people, doing real jobs, in front of young people as career Speakers to tell them what their careers are really like and give them great ideas for their future.

Growing Ambitions is an award-winning, not-for-profit FREE brokerage service to individuals and employers.

BBC News 24 Interview

BBC News 24, 21.07.2009 (5 mins) Sally Davis, MD comments on Milburn Report ‘Access to the Professions’. Or watch it on YouTube

"This latest report 'Access to the Professions' only goes to underline the need for Growing Ambitions in the area of careers information." Sally Davis, MD, Growing Ambitions.

Here careers education teachers and advisers can find local volunteer career Speakers from among over 900 career types and growing. This is a FREE service to individuals and to employers. Those whose staff are volunteering through us include Microsoft UK; Adecco; Shaw Trust; and hundreds more. It is a ready-made, high impact CSR activity.

Give a young person a dream, and careers guidance can then be well-targetted and all the more effective.

Within today's Information, Advice and Guidance (IAC) environment, providing vibrant, genuine and informative Word-Related Learning experiences is crucial in helping young people to make good GCSE, A level, Diploma, degree and other training choices, like apprenticeships. In the Staying On report (09/06/2009) by the Equality and Human Rights Commission 94% of young people said they need better career information. Fair access to the Professions carried out a survey among young people and found that 70 per cent of under 14-year-olds have never received careers advice.

Through capacity-building career talks from workplace role models, young people can make informed career plans that are more likely to endure. Young people from Key Stage 3 upwards benefit from this service.

Growing Ambitions is an agent for positive social change, enhanced social inclusion and mobility.