ACTOR Michael Sheen has given his support to a campaign to help homeless young people into employment.

On behalf of national charity End Youth Homelessness, Mr Sheen is now appealing for donations for the Employability Fund, which provides specialist career coaches that help young people work towards their dream careers.

Just £23 can give a young person an hour with a coach to help build the skills, confidence and high aspirations they need to get into work and out of homelessness.

Newport-born Mr Sheen said: “I don’t know about you but the thought of anybody being without something as basic as a safe and stable home to live in is terrible, but particularly young people.

"Young people who are vulnerable, who have grown up in circumstances not of their choosing, and who haven’t had the start that many of us take for granted. I think about how loving and supportive my parents and my wider family have been in my life, and how that launched me into my own independent life in a way that I took for granted for a very long time.

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"But not everyone is as fortunate to have that kind of a start. The thought of people - many of whom are young people coming out of the care system and just not on a level playing field with others, young people who have already gone through so much, often through very traumatic childhoods - the idea that they then, when they’re deemed to be of the age of adulthood, are being left on their own and ending up without a home and all the vulnerability and danger and insecurity and chaos that can put them into.

"The thought of that is just heartbreaking.”

More than 103,000 16-25 year olds are thought to be homeless in the UK each year.