Vulnerable and marginalised young people have a lot to offer – just like anyone else. Yet they're often held back because they don't have the right education or training. Far too often they're not given the support they need to make the most of their abilities.
Sometimes they don't have the guidance and experience from family members to help them reach their full potential during their teenage years and beyond. They can also do badly at school and then don't know where to go for training or careers advice. Others don't yet have the key skills and capabilities and need support to get them.
That's why Action for Children has set up the Entry to Employment (E2E) scheme, which is specifically geared around the needs of an individual young person. Action for Children considers that one-to-one, individualised support is very important for young people to achieve.
Barry Ward, 18, from Heacham in Norfolk, attended an E2E project. "I didn't have any qualifications before I left school at 16 – I just didn't get on with school. I didn't fit in but I fitted in at E2E a lot more than school. It was better for me there because I got a lot more respect. I wasn't getting any respect from teachers at school but all the trainers respect you and treat you like adults. That's the main reason I got on so well."
For a whole range of reasons, vulnerable young people may miss out on their schooling, which leads to a lack of qualifications. This especially applies to children who have been in care. According to government statistics 47% of the 8,300 young people who left care in 2007/08 had at least one GCSE or GNVQ. That compares badly to the 98.6% of all Year 11 children who achieve that. Just 7% of care leavers left care with five or more GCSEs at grade C or above.
E2E provides training to young people who need support to progress from school to employment, training or further education. This support is not just about education, but a whole range of skills they need to be successful in life.
E2E works in three different sites across Norfolk. It also works with schools, and a behaviour and attendance unit to provide training and support to young people, who for a variety of reasons, have failed to make the seamless progression from school to employment, training or further education. E2E also provides a community personal adviser who supports young people aged 16-19 in the King's Lynn area.
While the E2E course requires that the young people on its scheme have the potential to gain level 2 NVQ qualifications, other courses are on offer too. These include 10-week programmes for young and expectant mothers, and training in personal and social development. The programme focuses on raising confidence, promoting anger management, teaching independent living skills and lowering barriers to learning that may have hindered young people in the past.
Since attending the E2E course, Barry has started an apprenticeship – although it was not plain sailing to start with. "It took some time getting a work placement and in the end I got a couple in retail. The first placement I took was in a Sue Ryder charity shop and I'm now back there doing an apprenticeship – it's an NVQ level 2 in retail."
Barry feels E2E has really helped. "Getting help and support from E2E and Action for Children has definitely made a difference to my future. It's what got me my job in retail. If I hadn't gone there and got my qualifications, I'd either be jobless or only able to get a really bad job."
Action for Children believes that vulnerable young people need support to take up apprenticeships. Because apprenticeships are now a key part of mainsteam training, young people from marginalised backgrounds are likely to experience the same difficulty accessing them as they do with other forms of further education. That's why less formal training programmes, like the E2E project, are such a useful way back into education for vulnerable young people.
So just because they had a tough start in life, with the right education and training, it needn't mean that their future will be tough too.
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