Apprenticeship award winner

A plumbing apprentice working for Coastline Services in Cornwall proudly took home the achievers award at the Cornwall Construction Training Group annual apprentice awards ceremony.

Elliott Childs was so keen to fulfil his dream of becoming a qualified plumber that he started volunteering with Coastline one day a week in his free time for an entire year during his A-level studies, before going on to secure an apprenticeship with the company.

He has since completed a wealth of training and on the job learning, culminating in Elliott achieving his Level 2 Plumbing Apprenticeship through Cornwall College.

At the awards ceremony, he was the proud winner of the Coastline Construct Achievers Award, a category which the social landlord created to acknowledge the hard work of the many apprentices who come through the construction route of its inspiring futures programme, aspiring to work in the industry.

Chris Weston, Director of Development and Commercial Services at Coastline Housing, said: “Coastline Construct is a programme which aims to help people who would like to work in the construction sector get their career underway. As well as apprentices who might have just left school and are looking to start their career, we also help a large number of older people who are looking to return to the workplace or take their career in a new direction.

“We had a number of extremely strong nominees for this award, from all walks of life, and it was incredibly difficult to decide who would be our winner. We’d all like to extend our congratulations to Elliott though, who impressed us all greatly by giving up so much of his free time to volunteer before his apprenticeship even started. This strong work ethic and determination to succeed from such a young person was extremely commendable.”

Coastline, via a number of initiatives, helps local people into or back to work, with the help of many different industry and education partners locally.

Elliott said: “I’m really honoured to have been nominated and to have received this award. My apprenticeship has gone from strength to strength and I feel like I’ve been growing from strength to strength with it.”