Emma-Kate Ryan

Said the following about YRP Ambassadors Training Team:

“I wish to nominate the Young Rail Professionals’ (YRP) Ambassadors Programme Training Team, as Rail Staff Training Team of the year.

The Young Rail Professionals are a volunteer-run, not-for-profit organisation that was founded in 2009 to promote, inspire and develop the next generation of railway talent. YRP brings together people from all aspects of the industry, whether they are involved in engineering, asset management, train operations, strategic planning, maintenance, franchising, regulation, marketing or human relations. YRP is open to any young rail professional.

Young Rail Professionals (YRP) has an Ambassadors Programme, which is one of YRP’s most valuable deliverables for the rail industry. YRP Ambassadors provide a positive and insightful outreach presence in schools, colleges, and universities on behalf of the rail industry. They are the face of our industry, promoting and inspiring the next generation into rail. This programme supports the development, expansion and maintenance of a first-class, cost effective, 21st Century railway and aims to address the current skills gap that exists.

Over 250 YRP Ambassadors need to be trained and engaged in activity, and this is where the YRP Ambassadors Training Team steps in.

It is important to note that all YRP Ambassadors and the YRP Ambassadors Training Team, led by Aoife Considine and May-Ann Lew, are volunteers, working on this as an aside to their day job in the industry. To also put this into context, as YRP is a non-for-profit organisation, the Training Team is particularly impressive, having a national presence without the budget that most large organisations hold.

In order to achieve their goals, the YRP Ambassadors need to be trained to achieve the skills required to facilitate this mammoth task; it is important that Ambassadors are supported and equipped with the skills necessary to engage with young people. To ensure success, the YRP Ambassadors Training Team not only provides internal YRP training, in the form of resource packs for rail based educational activities for different age groups that are all available online; workshops where they teach Ambassadors how to deliver activities in schools and colleges; and slide packs and presentation workshops. It also arranges specific STEMNET training for all Ambassadors across the country. This not only means all YRP Ambassadors are DBS checked, but provides them with a structured initial training to compliment the training YRP provide.

Training is also delivered in conjunction with the consultancy A2B Excellence to provide essential presentation skills training to YRP Ambassadors wishing to give presentations at universities.

The YRP Ambassadors programme runs several projects throughout the year including the Routes into Rail University Presentation Programme, providing a rail presence at careers fairs, conducting school visits and outreach in partnership in partnership with STEMnet and providing volunteers and support at events like Big Bang Fairs, TennTech, Next Gen Rail, and many more.

In doing so, the YRP Ambassadors Training Team aren’t just providing a good opportunity for their Ambassadors to improve their communication skills, but are in fact training what will hopefully be the future generation of young rail professionals by equipping them with up-to-date knowledge of the rail industry. Our interactive activities for students also work to engage students with the fun side of rail, and help break down the misconception of rail being an archaic industry in the UK.

The success of Rail Week 2016 and the events delivered by YRP Ambassadors is testament to the amount of planning that went into the campaign, and the quality of the training provided by the YRP Ambassadors Training Team. This week was a manifestation of the YRP Ambassadors’ aims and objectives of engaging more people in the rail industry.

During the week over 70 organisations held over 150 bespoke site visits, educational activities and behind-the-scenes events, as well as dozens of inspiring STEM school outreach sessions. YRP Ambassadors supported Rail Week across the country by attending Big Bang Fairs where they ran interactive railway activities for students. Big Bang Fairs are the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) for young people in the UK and a brilliant way to show students first-hand what a career in rail entails.

Feedback from these events has been nothing but positive with YRP Ambassadors reporting that their stand was even more engaging than some of the big companies’ due to its simplicity and ability to engage students’ creativity in envisaging the “railway of the future”.

The YRP Ambassadors Training Team impart important communication, presentation, and persuasion skills which YRP Ambassadors all say are highly transferrable to their day-to-day jobs, helping to improve the rail industry.

The national achievements of this training team, carried out on a volunteer basis surpass most training programmes run by professional organisations, so it is for this reason that I wish to nominate the YRP Ambassadors Programme Training Team for Training Team of the Year.“