The Alan Higgs Trust has awarded £15 000 to the radio station’s parent company, WATCH, towards work experience placements for students with special educational needs and disabilities. Coventry City Council has provided £8026 in resilience funding to build up Hillz FM’s capacity.

WATCH’s CEO, Nadia Taghi, said: “These two new opportunities will help us expand our reach.”

“We will develop our new volunteer radio committee to guide the radio station, make learning visits to other community radio projects around the county, and invest in live broadcasting equipment for special events/remote broadcasts. Both these opportunities will enable the station to move forward and continue to grow.”

“We’re really looking forward to welcoming one student on work experience per month throughout 2026, plus a longer internship for 8 weeks in the summer. These work placements are a way to give students first-hand experience of what it's like working at a radio station. They will learn invaluable skills in media production, as well as soft skills like confidence, time keeping and communication. There will be further opportunities for them to have their own weekly radio show on Hillz 98.6 FM as well as volunteering behind the scenes.”

“In the past, 60% of students who did a placement with us continued to stay engaged through volunteering and having their own radio shows. One student who stayed heavily engaged went on to complete a BA (hons) Media Studies degree and is now in employment. They have told us that their time at Hillz FM sparked their passion in media.”

Hillz FM has had a full FM Ofcom license in 2009 and has 35 volunteers involved with it, with 42 hours of live shows and 8 hours of prerecorded shows per week. WATCH runs a weekly afterschool club (on Thursday) around radio skills for young people between the ages of 8 and 18. Since 2019, they have provided training to local residents in radio training (Skillz with Hillz) and are currently finishing a year-long project with the Department for Work and Pensions around radio training.