Support Connexions by writing to your MP today

An early day motion has come up in Parliament, calling for support for the Connexions service, and for the government to restore funding to the Connexions service and reverse their policy of placing the statutory obligation for careers advice on schools (without giving them any funding to do so!)

Connexions are asking people to write to their MP asking them to sign it – or in the cases of Roger Godsiff, Richard Burden and Steve McCabe, thanking them for signing it already.

You can view the Early Day motion and check if your MP has signed it here

You can email your MP easily using Write to Them

Connexions have been striking in Birmingham to defend their jobs and service in a city with well above average unemployment in both the youth and adult populations.  There has been much support for them on their picket lines, and now we can show our support in other ways as well.  You can have a look through an archive of posts about the Connexions struggle in Birmingham here

Here is a model letter for you to adapt – if you have personal experience of using Connexions and can tell your MP how they helped you, then please do – the more individual stories they get the better.

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Please can you support this Early Day Motion which is being raised by Labour MPs, which questions the decimation of the Connexions Services nationally before the Con-Dems’ National Career Service comes on board next April (and for which the funding is not yet clear).

In Birmingham where I live,  Connexions are facing a 30% cut this year which we have resisted by sustaining a UNISON led campaign to preserve our service to young people.  Birmingham has an above average level of youth unemployment and the destruction of this service will only act to further marginalise young people in this city who are unable to get advice on employment and training.

The following EDM has been tabled in parliament by Alan Meale MP on Careers and Connexions Services. It currently has 27 cross party signatures.

“That this House is aware of the UK’s current fiscal problems which are inevitably leading to higher levels of unemployment and ultimately poor health, higher crime and social breakdown within communities; notes that at this time unemployment amongst 16 to 25 year olds in the UK has reached record levels with more than a million young people struggling to find work; is therefore alarmed that when help is needed to reverse this trend, hundreds of thousands of young people across the UK have either very limited or no access to face-to-face career guidance, a situation caused directly by the Government’s decision to place the statutory duty to ensure impartial careers guidance on schools, who have been given no additional funds to deliver such important services; and calls on the Government to reverse its policy and instead to provide sufficient funding to the Careers and Connexions Service to help our young people plan and organise their futures.”

http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2010-11/1685

Please show your support for the youth of this city by adding your signature to the Early Day Motion, along with other local MPs like Richard Burden, Roger Godsiff and Steve McCabe

 

 

 

 

 

 

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