Exciting News! We’re thrilled to share the launch of Project Move, a transformative initiative aimed at addressing the needs of our community by providing a comprehensive and innovative solution.  

Project Move focuses on empowering individuals to lead healthier lives, improve their physical fitness, and enhance their overall well-being. From swimming lessons to yoga, dance, and basketball, we’ve got a variety engaging sessions for young people no matter which type of movement they enjoy. This project is made possible with National Lottery funding from Sport England. 

The goal of Project Move

The primary goal of Project Move is to promote physical activity and well-being among young people of the Global Majority. We are committed to making a positive impact on the health and development of young individuals in our community. 

These activities include: 

We can’t wait to get started with Project Move and make more positive contributions to the community! 

If you’re interested in hearing more about this work or know someone who might be, please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

How are things going with work? Are you just as passionate about what you do now as the day you started? If yes, that’s incredible! But if you find yourself dreading Monday mornings and aren’t feeling that spark of excitement anymore, maybe a new career is the fresh start you need.  

It can feel scary going outside of your comfort zone and trying something new as an adult. But there are also so many incredible benefits of changing career that can help bring you a sense of purpose, better work-life balance, and a feeling of achievement. No matter where you’re at in life, it’s never too late to change careers and follow your passions! 

There are lots of reasons why you may consider retraining: 

Your interests have changed. How many people can honestly say they love all the same things that they did at 16 or 18 when they began working toward their initial qualification or apprenticeship? Retraining and entering a new career can help you find something that is more in line with the interests and values that you hold at this point in your life. 

You want to advance in your industry. Retraining doesn’t necessarily mean changing up your career path and industry altogether. Completing a new course, apprenticeship, or Skills Bootcamp on the side can help you gain the skills needed to advance to a more advanced role in your current sector. You may even choose to stay with the same company – just in a higher management-level position or in a specialised role different to your current one. 

You’re feeling stuck, bored, or unmotivated. We spend a big chunk of our week at work, so ideally, you’ll want a career that you enjoy. If you’re feeling bored and unmotivated for 40 hours each week, that will begin to impact both your physical and mental health and may start seeping into other aspects of your life too. 

We all want to feel a sense of purpose in our careers. Sometimes, all you need is a new challenge to reignite that passion in you. Of course, there’s always an element of risk anytime you try something new like embarking on a new apprenticeship programme, educational course, or Skills Bootcamp. But that risk could also turn out to be the best decision you ever make – you’ll never know until you try! 

If you’re thinking of taking the plunge, here of some of the specific benefits that you my experience after changing careers: 

Learn new skills 

It’s never too late to learn something new! Not only will a new course or apprenticeship teach you the skills needed to change careers… learning new things as an adult also helps keep your brain sharp, helps you to grow as a person, and it can also be a lot of fun! 

Feel a sense of accomplishment 

This is one of the best parts of pursuing a career you love! It’s amazing to feel a sense of purpose and like you’re making a difference with what you do. 

Do something you truly enjoy 

On average we spend 40 hours a week for around 40 years of our lives working. When we dedicate so much of our lives to doing something, it feels so much better when it’s something you enjoy! 

Experience more freedom 

Changing up your career could reward you with more free time to spend with loved ones or to focus on your hobbies. For example, you may switch to a career with more flexible working hours or one that allows you to work remotely. 

Leverage your existing skills 

When you decide to change career paths, you’re not starting from scratch. If you are pivoting into a related industry, there will likely be a decent amount of overlap with skills. But even if you are going in a completely new direction, everything you learned in previous roles will still be valuable, particularly “soft skills” like communication, time management, teamwork, and leadership skills. 

Potentially earn a higher salary 

While we don’t believe money should be the main motivator, a higher salary is just one of the many benefits people may experience when changing careers. 

Embrace a new challenge 

If you’re someone who enjoys trying new things and getting outside of your comfort zone, there’s a good chance you’ll love taking on a new qualification or apprenticeship opportunity. If you’ve been working in the same role for a long time, you may be feeling bored or stagnant and taking on a new challenge will provide you with plenty of new experiences. 

Prove your dedication to future employers 

It takes a lot of courage and ambition to make a career change. Once you complete your apprenticeship and start applying for new jobs, this will likely help you stand out to employers as it will prove that you’re passionate, hardworking, and willing to go outside of your comfort zone. 

Find a less demanding career 

If you’re beginning to feel burnt-out in your current role, you may consider changing careers to find something that’s less demanding and draining. This means something different for everyone – it could mean working fewer hours, swapping from a physically-demanding career to something desk-based, or taking on work that is more interesting and mentally fulfilling. 

Meet new people 

By completing a qualification or apprenticeship and trying new work opportunities, you’ll meet a whole bunch of interesting and inspiring people, including  co- learners and mentors who can help you adjust to a new career path. 

Have a change of scenery 

Sometimes entering a new environment is all we need to feel freshly inspired! 

Avoid burnout 

If you’re in a high-demand role, it’s easy to get burnt out. And when you start to feel burnt out from work, that stress and fatigue can sneak into your personal life as well, impacting your health and the way you are with friends and family. Finding a job that you really enjoy can reduce the risk of burnout significantly and help you feel much more relaxed and satisfied in your day-to-day life. 

Feel a newfound excitement in your career 

Many of us feel excited and ambitious when we first begin working, but as the years pass by and you settle into a routine, that passion may start to dim. When you take on a new challenge or begin a new job, you’re likely to experience a newfound sense of hunger and excitement that’s been missing from your professional life for a while! 

Are you curious how much your life could change by retraining in a new career? If you’re wondering where to start, we want to help! We offer a variety of qualification courses and training opportunities for people of all ages and at every stage of life. In addition to our educational programmes, pre-apprenticeships, and apprenticeships designed for young adults, we also offer a variety of opportunities for adults of all ages. Apprenticeship opportunities span several different industries and are available in locations all over the country. We have also recently launched a series of Skills Bootcamps to help people begin a career in Early Years Education. Click the links below to learn more about our various programmes: 

Study Programmes 

Pre-Apprenticeships 

Apprenticeships 

Skills Bootcamps 

Want to learn more about one of our programmes? Fill out this form, and someone from our team will be in touch to help you get started and get you on your way to designing your dream life.  

It’s a time to celebrate all the accomplishments and contributions women have made throughout history. Today, Friday 8 March, is one of the highlights of the month – International Women’s Day. While we’re taking this day to shine a special light on the women of Central YMCA, we make strides all year long to encourage gender equality in the workplace. 

Central YMCA couldn’t be the organisation it is without the women we are lucky enough to have as stakeholders. We know just how valuable their contributions are to the Charity, and we actively invest in the professional development of the women in our workforce. 

Our workforce currently consists of 56% women and an impressive 62% at management level – 32 of our 51 line managers across the Charity are women! Our pay gap for women across the organisation is also 2.41% lower than the national average, based on ONS data from 2023. 

Over recent years, we have launched several initiatives aimed at women and girls, including one of our most recent projects, Y’s Girls, a mentorship programme for young girls in London to help them grow into confident and resilient women. 

While we work hard to promote equity amongst the Central YMCA team, we recognise that there is still a way to go until the world is free of gender discrimination and bias. Until we get there, we will keep advocating for gender equity both in and out of the workplace! 

It’s great to see the news of apprenticeship starts numbers beginning to rise in the news recently, and hugely positive to see the outpouring of support during this National Apprenticeship Week highlighting the impact that these programmes have had on individuals from all walks of life, and for the organisations they work for. In fact, when I was asked to write this piece, part of the brief was to do exactly that, to celebrate the success of our learners, across the broad range of subjects that we offer – but, you can read all about that here: Apprenticeships | Central YMCA

Reading through stories of learner success and provider case studies over the last couple of days I find myself in awe. Irrespective of the programmes themselves, or the standards being delivered against, there is so much more to an apprenticeship than ‘earning whilst learning’…

There is something unique to apprenticeships that teaches individuals how to question themselves, how to fail, and how to adapt to a different setting than they have previously experienced, in a way that isn’t developed in a purely educational setting – both in terms of mainstream education or full-time short-courses where time is taken away from work to complete. It’s an obvious point, but equally often overlooked, the immersive design of apprenticeship programmes teach a learner how to juggle multiple priorities, to split their focus, and to manage several stakeholder groups concurrently. Skills that can otherwise take much longer for an individual in a purely work setting to master.

By default, apprentices have to broaden their awareness and become adept at perceptual positioning and are encouraged to develop their curiosity. In a nutshell, they learn how they learn, and at same time gain an understanding of how others learn – again, invaluable skills that serve long after an individuals’ time on programme. In many cases this is also true for those individuals who were not able to complete their programme for whatever reason.

In this regard, apprenticeships, no matter what academic level someone joins at, are foundational. They create a new beginning for the learner.

In almost every instance that I have seen apprenticeship programmes are formative by design… and they are transformative in nature. Perhaps more so now than ever, given the changes to delivery models that we have seen over the last few years.

Another thing that strikes me this week is that we all too often focus on the enrichment of the apprentice themselves, and whilst this should not be in question (at all, ever!), it often goes unsaid that the impact of apprenticeship delivery is much further reaching – especially in terms of line manager’s development, more often than not in regards peer development as social learning and in some cases manager’s managers and organisational development as well.

These are all ‘peripheral’ and very real benefits of an apprenticeship that occur naturally outside and beyond the parameters of the programme itself, and each, in their own right create a viable business case to justify the costs and guarantee a return on investment.

Add to this the well-documented and ever-expanding literature that makes the case for training more generally – staff retention, emotional wellbeing, organisational efficiencies, diversity of thought etc and so on – all of which suggest that training will not just keep getting the job done but that it will get it done faster and better. It simply belies comprehension that the pervading myth of the 20% off-the-job-training requirement being cost-prohibitive is just so… pervasive!

In short, apprenticeships create skills for life, for life.