Two new national training awards are being launched to help boost the level of agricultural training of rural young people.
The County Training Awards and the Top Trainers Award, launched by the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs (NFYFC) hopes to deliver high-quality training to young people.
The County Training Awards recognise NFYFC’s 46 county federations who are delivering training at a bronze, silver or gold standard following a self-assessment that is verified by NFYFC.
Gold awards are given to YFC county federations that can prove they are delivering higher levels of training using internal and external trainers as well as regularly planning and reviewing their training requirements.
It is hoped that the awards will inspire more YFC counties to raise their training standards by aiming for gold status.
As well as recognising county federations, NFYFC will also be praising individual trainers through its new Top Trainers Award.
This award has been set up to reward individuals who have demonstrated exceptional skills in training others throughout the membership year. Nominations for this award are now open and a panel from NFYFC will choose a winner, who will be announced at the Annual General Meeting in 2019.
The Curve
NFYFC has developed its own peer training programme called The Curve, which encourages YFCs to deliver training during club sessions using certified trainers – these are often YFC members who have been on an NFYFC Train the Trainer course.
There are currently 19 Curve modules, which are aimed at supporting clubs to run more efficiently and safely as well as helping to develop young rural people’s skills.
NFYFC has already exceeded its 2017-18 membership year training target for at least 2,500 members to attend a Curve training session.
The most popular Curve module this year is the Farm Safety training that was developed with the Farm Safety Foundation.
So far more than 100 clubs have delivered this course during a club session, equipping more than 1,600 members with potentially life-saving skills for when they are on the farm.
'Recognising hard work'
Charlotte Smith, NFYFC President said many people don't realise the amount of training and skills development work that YFC's deliver.
“These awards will go someway to recognising the hard work that YFC county federations and individual trainers put into developing rural young people’s skills and the positive impact they are having on the wider industry,” Ms Smith said.
Cath Sykes, NFYFC’s Development and Training Manager added: “We are keen to ensure that all YFC members have access to the range of high quality training courses that are available. We facilitate this through our network of peer trainers who are able to deliver the Curve modules to our 619 Young Farmers’ Clubs.
“These new awards have been created to reward the trainers and YFC county federations that go the extra mile in training delivery as well as to inspire others to reach those top standards. Ultimately, we want to ensure that even more YFC members benefit from the learning and development opportunities available to them.”
