Connexions Bury

Bury Connexions is the impartial information, advice, guidance and support service for all young people aged between 13 and 19, and up to 25 for those young people with learning difficulties or disabilities.

Connexions Logo Connexions Bury is part of Bury Council's Children's Services and has a centre at 13-15 Broad Street, Bury.

Connexions works with young people in or out of learning or employment, and with schools, colleges, training providers and employers, to raise participation and access to learning. We provide young people with the information, advice and guidance they need to access further education and work, as well as arranging interviews for training opportunities and apprenticeships.

Connexions can also bring together all the support services that help young people stay on track in learning. We work not only with school and college pastoral and support systems, but also with social services, health services, youth services, voluntary and community organisations and others to provide support for young people.

Connexions Bury is accredited to the matrix quality standard for information advice and guidance services. The Matrix Standard is awarded to organisations that provide consistently high quality help and support, so you can make an informed decision about your future. The standard is government approved so you can be sure you're getting the very best independent advice that's available. Matrix Standard logo

Connexions Bury matrix standard summary - see our downloads area for both of these documents
Connexions Bury matrix standard summary - short version

In 2012, Connexions Bury has worked towards achieving the highest ever number of young people leaving year 11 entering employment, education or training, achieving a rate of 95.9%. If you would like more information on where Bury young people go when leaving school, please see our latest report, Destinations 2012, in the downloads area. There is also a summarised text version of this document in the downloads area.

Personal Advisers

Connexions provides the best support and advice possible through a team of Personal Advisers. PAs are specially trained and will help young people to:

contact any organisations who might be helpful to them;
realise what they can do with their life, building on their strengths and tackling their weaknesses;
explore possibilities they might never have considered;
deal with any personal problems that may be worrying them.

The Connexions Personal Adviser is a single point of contact so young people are not passed from pillar to post if they need help from a range of agencies.

Advice and support

Connexions provides support and advice on a wide range of issues including:

Career Choice
Education
Health/Sexual health
Employment
Housing
Relationships
Training
Benefits
Drug and alcohol issues

Career paths / Guidance

Connexions can give the advice and guidance needed to make informed choices about the future and help with:

choosing career and course options, and applying to college/university
choosing training courses
personal issues affecting study or progress
advice on choosing the right job or placement
information on work-based training
tailored programmes of life skills if you're not ready to start work or training, but want to be better prepared

Job / Training opportunities

Fact: If you train and gain qualifications while you work you are more likely to earn more money and less likely to be unemployed.

If you are about to leave school or college or you are currently looking for work, we can help you to apply for jobs and training.

An Apprenticeship is a great way of getting a recognised qualification whilst getting paid. Foundation Learning is personalised training to help you prepare for work. Further information from our offsite links.

CNX2JOBS (from our 'offsite links') provides jobs and training opportunities for young people across Greater Manchester region. The website is designed to advertise a range of opportunities across Greater Manchester. As well as jobs and apprenticeships, many of the opportunities are a first step to getting into employment.

Parents and carers

Connexions Bury recognises that parents, carers and guardians play an important role in influencing the decision that their children make. You might be a young parent or carer yourself, possibly on your own.

We want to work with you to help prepare your child for the future. We aim to make sure that your child gets the best information, advice and support so that they make realistic life choices.

Our Personal Advisers will:

provide information, help and advice on courses, qualifications and careers
help young people find jobs and training
help to select further and higher education courses

There are many other organisations that can help your son/daughter make decisions. A Personal Adviser can act as an important link between teachers, careers advisers, youth workers, social workers and health workers.

They will also work with other specialist organisations to help young people.

with learning difficulties or disabilities
experiencing problems with issues like relationships, drugs, money and accommodation.

Free computer facilities

Our Connexions Centre has free computer facilities with access to the internet for use with job search, searching for educational courses, producing CVs etc. Careers information and guidance software packages can also be accessed.