Written evidence submitted
by Action for Children
Over the past year Action for children has successfully
recruited 140[36]
young people under the FJF initiative (many of whom would never
previously have considered applying for a job with us). Many of
these young people have been languishing in the derogatory not
education, employment or training (NEET[37])
categorisation but now realise that they are able to make a valuable
contribution to the workforce.
1. EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
- The Government has an obligation to provide appropriate
opportunities and support for all young people especially the
most vulnerable[38]
and those who are most disengaged from education, employment and
training.
- The most vulnerable young people across the UK
need extra support so that they are equipped to take advantage
of any future opportunities. More must also be done to raise their
aspirations to succeed in life and to prevent intergenerational
worklessness[39].
- The Government's new Work Programme due to be
launched in 2011 must be accessible to vulnerable young people,
be flexible enough to meet their needs, learn lessons from the
FJF and build on its successes.
2. ACTION FOR
CHILDREN[40]
2.1 Action for Children is committed to seeing
all young people fulfil their potential; this is not just about
attaining certain grades at school but setting and achieving their
ambitions.
2.2 Our services:
- Support young people to stay in or enter education,
employment or training.
- Work with young people who are disabled[41],
homeless, leaving care, have caring responsibilities, and who
are at risk of, or who have, offended.
- Help young people to become independent.
- Enable young people to become active citizens
in their own communities.
2.4 In all of our work with children and young
people we seek to open up opportunities, overcome barriers and
build resilience - employability is a key aspect of this approach.
Our services take a holistic approach addressing wider problems
such as participation in education, employment and training. We
do this by meeting the needs of a young person based not just
upon their age but on the stage that they are at in their development.[42]
3. ACTION FOR
CHILDREN AND
THE FUTURE
JOBS FUND
(FJF)
3.1 Action for Children recruited 140 young
people under the FJF initiative, 69 are non operational staff
(admin based roles) and 71 operational staff (early years and
youth support roles).
3.2 We created posts in youth support, business
support and early years support. We worked hard to identify these
real roles and were acutely conscious of potential safeguarding
issues and risks due to the vulnerability of many of our service
users. We did not allow for safeguarding and child protection
issues to be compromised at any point, but nevertheless have been
able to place young people in real work situations allowing them
get the best experience and a real insight into the work we do.
Our employees under the FJF are real members of the Action for
Children team. We value the young people we employ and have never
treated the FJF as an initiative for voluntary work or work experience.
3.3 Our internal evaluation of the FJF will be
based on feedback from employees and line managers. We aim to
complete this evaluation in January 2011. It will look at:
- The distance travelled by employees in terms
of skill base and personal development i.e. confidence/self esteem.
- The ways we can improve internal procedures regarding
recruitment and ongoing support, helping us to shape future services
and programmes.
4. THE EXTENT
TO WHICH
THE FJF HAS
SUCCEEDED IN
MATCHING NEW
WORK EXPERIENCE
OPPORTUNITIES TO
YOUNG UNEMPLOYED
PEOPLE
4.1 We would like to stress that our experience
as an employer under the FJF initiative has been extremely positive.
We have successfully matched 140 young people to real roles within
our organisation and those young people have become valuable members
of our workforce.
4.2 We have matched young people to the following
posts and roles:
- Business support /administration function. This
role is vital to our services as it is the first point of contact
for people visiting or telephoning a project/office. These employees
engage with community users, enquirers, established partners and
other key stakeholders.
- Youth Support Workers have direct contact with
their community. In this role they support individuals, groups
and in some instances families in activities such as mentoring,
coaching, outreach, residential, trips and outings. All of which
involve face-to-face communication with children, young people
and their families.
- Early Years Support Workers This role provides
FJF employees with the opportunity to have direct contact in some
of our services with pre-school children, young children, their
parent/carers, frequently with social workers and other professionals.
This can be through working in crèches, play sessions,
food preparation, parenting, pre-school and after school sessions.
4.4 The young people employed as part of the
FJF have a full employment plan. This includes: a comprehensive
induction process which is tailored to the role they will be undertaking;
a key one-to-one session detailing objectives and training plan
with their line manager; and a mentor based at the project they
are working who will provide additional support throughout their
six month placement. The focus of the training and support is
on participants strengths and areas for development. As part of
their induction, new staff complete training courses; intranet
based learning and shadow existing workers. Examples include:
- City and Guilds Level one certificate in employability
and Personal Development.
- Action for Children core training (Introduction
to Action for Children - welcome day, diversity and inclusion,
safeguarding).
- Digital Literacy Curriculum and Microsoft Office
Essentials (both part of the Britain Works campaign through Microsoft).
- Internal training within projects such as introductions
to internal IT systems/ health and safety etc.
- In addition, we have provided a small fund for
external training for example in Newcastle one of our business
support officers is undertaking an IT qualification at the local
college which we are funding.
This training will provide our FJF employees with
a legacy of transferable skills that will serve them in their
future employment choices.
5. STRENGTHS
AND WEAKNESSES
OF THE
FJF PROGRAMME
Strengths
5.1 Helping employees on the FJF become more
employable
For many young people their FJF placement is their
first experience of real work. Their new roles support them to
develop; to take responsibility for themselves (i.e. getting to
work on time); to take responsibility in their workplace and to
develop communication skills and appropriate work place behaviour.
Many of the skills the young people have developed can be defined
as "soft skills", i.e. confidence and self esteem, qualities
that are difficult to measure but are critical for employability.
Measuring these elements is a part of our internal evaluation.
We have many examples of how the FJF employees are
developing skills such as using their initiative and creativity
along with interpersonal skills. This foundation of real work
experience for FJF employees means that when they do seek further
employment they will be in a more advantageous position. After
their FJF employment we believe these young people will have moved
closer to the labour market and to securing employment due to
receiving the right "on the job experience", training
and emotional support.
Experience of the FJF - employee
"The Future Jobs Fund initiative has provided
me with employment that seemed unavailable because I lacked the
hands on experience most jobs look for. This initiative has substantially
benefited my career and I would recommend the Future Jobs Fund
path into employment to anyone".
5.2 Supporting FJF employees with additional
needs
As a FJF employer we have been able to offer a holistic
package of support, which has meant young people working with
us are unlikely to leave their placement. We understand that young
people who have been unemployed for an extended period often have
additional needs such as: apprehension and uncertainty towards
the work place, finding it difficult to integrate into the working
environment, motivational issues and/or low skills. As our services
are community based and highly experienced in welcoming and engaging
the most socially excluded young people, our staff have used their
experience to nurture the young people to feel confident in the
work place alongside developing their skills.
The young people we have employed through the FJF
come from a diverse range of backgrounds and circumstances with
a variety of needs. All our line managers have the flexibility
to put in extra support for an individual and specifically tailor
it to the individuals identified needs such as another member
of staff mentoring the employee to integrate into the workplace.
The dedicated resource we assign to manage this role (the FJF
coordinator) ensures the direct line managers have additional
support.
Due to our experience and expertise with working
with hard to reach young people we have been able to demonstrate
our flexibility when faced with challenges to retaining an employee.
The importance of this approach is further supported by our charitable
objectives.
Case study - Preventing a FJF placement from breaking
down
A young man working in our fundraising team has been
displaying aspects of autistic behaviour I.e. difficulty in remembering
instructions, poor communication skills and a lack of interpersonal
skills.
These behaviours were not disclosed during the recruitment
process which led to problems during his first month of employment.
The staff team took time out of their own schedules to repeat
instructions and guide this young man. After discussions
in supervision and with the FJF coordinator, the line manager
was able to identify key areas of the employee's progress that
were proving successful in particular his attention to detail
and his IT skills.
After a small adjustment to his working duties the
employee is now making good progress and the staff team is now
working together productively. Taking the time out to focus on
what this young man could do instead of what he couldn't made
all the difference to him still being in employment today.
5.3 Keeping young people off benefits after
FJF placements
Whilst it is still very early days for the majority
of the young people on the programme with us, we will have a small
number of leavers in September and October and we are confident
that after their time with us they will be better equipped to
apply for jobs in the future.
Within our organisation we have been able to offer
further employment opportunities to some of the young people who
have been successfully involved with the FJF initiative (for example
a permanent Business Support Officer level 2 post was filled in
one of our services in the Wirral and Youth Support Worker in Millom).
Many managers working with FJF employees are looking at the option
of keeping staff on permanently when their contract is completed.
Without the FJF it would have been unlikely that these young people
would have even applied for these posts; they are now a great
addition to our workforce. In addition, a number of FJF employees
have been given additional working hours due to the level of their
performance so far. Furthermore,
5.4 FJF employees positively impacting the Action
for Children work force
Reports from our managers about their involvement
with the FJF employees have been extremely positive. We have run
internal FJF Employee Coaching Sessions[43]
for all those who are supervising an FJF employee. This covered
the portfolio qualification which looks at putting together evidence
of competencies gained from the time on the initiative and also
at ways of making the time the most positive and productive for
the young person i.e. motivational techniques.
We have found that the FJF employees have both complimented
and enhanced our existing staff teams, with young people teaching
our staff a great deal. For example, a number of employees are
extremely proficient with their IT skills and have come into our
workplace and set up new admin systems and recording procedures.
Furthermore, one of the by-products from the FJF
programme is that it supports development opportunities for our
own permanent staff within Action for Children. There are a high
number of project/office managers across our organisation that
have delegated the mentoring to staff team members in order to
build their own skill base by supervising a FJF employee.
Experience of the FJF - Line manager
"I am finding the Future Jobs Fund employment
opportunity a positive experience, Melissa is a very capable and
willing employee, she has worked on specific jobs and covers general
office tasks when required. As a new line manager, the experience
for me to work with Melissa from the recruitment stage, and throughout
her employment has been very rewarding."
Weaknesses
5.5 Job Centre Plus (JCP) procedures presenting
barriers to young people
We had very little time to establish our new working
relationships with JCP offices and leads at the beginning of the
FJF initiative. We identified in the early stage a number of barriers
preventing those more vulnerable young people from applying for
roles with us. These included JCP advisors being unclear of the
FJF process, advisors not promoting the roles, and the application
process being a "hurdle to high" for some young people
as they were not given the adequate time or support to fill in
an application form.
To counter some of these issues, Action for Children
adjusted several of its existing recruitment procedures in order
to successfully recruit the 140 young people - for example reducing
by half the length of our job application forms. In some cases
we did remove our application form altogether by using the JCP
generic application form. We also held open days in three of our
projects where potential candidates could come for interviews.
Nevertheless, these factors along with the existing
stigma, which inhibits young people from even entering JCP offices,
was a significant reason behind why we have found it difficult
to recruit vulnerable young people.
5.6 Post Employment Support
As part of the contractual agreements under FJF,
JCP advisors are supposed to re-engage the FJF employees
at months 4 and 5 to help to support them to secure permanent
work. This has not consistently been taking place. We believe
that if our experience is shared across other organisations, this
will impact on the number of leavers who may return to claim government
benefits. Furthermore, we are concerned there will be a large
demand on this service closer to the end of the year when many
of the FJF placements complete. In Action for Children 95% of
our FJF employees finish in December.
5.7 Training not being an essential requirement
With the training element being central to the positions
we have offered and knowing the positive impact this has made,
we feel that this crucial element should have been a requirement
for the initiative not optional.
6. THE LIKELY
IMPACT OF
THE DECISION
TO END
THE FJF IN
MARCH 2011 RATHER
THAN MARCH
2012
6.1 We believe that the likely impact
of the decision to end the FJF in March 2011 rather than March
2012 will be to exacerbate the current situation for many vulnerable
young people who are unable to access employment opportunities.
The programme itself was a "ray of hope" for many young
people who felt there was really no way out of their unemployed
status. It gives young people without the connections to certain
professions or employers a "helping hand" or a route
through the "back door" into employment opportunities
that would not normally be open to them without such state intervention.
6.2 The most vulnerable young people need extra
support during this recession so that they are best equipped to
take advantage of any future opportunities. The opportunities
they thought would be available to them at the time they entered
the job market are now not there. We are concerned that as youth
unemployment rises (on current trends), any opportunities will
be snapped up by those better connected and more academically
successful young people - further increasing the divide.
6.3 For the most vulnerable and excluded the
impact of the recession will not just be felt now - but may persist
across generations. Some families trapped by previous recessions
are still feeling the impact today and the current recession appears
likely to widen this gap still further. The repercussions both
for individuals and for our society in terms of wasted aspirations
and lost opportunities will resonate for years.
6.4 We acknowledge that the situation for many
young people who are leaving further education or university is
bleak. It is right for Government to support these young people.
However, we are very concerned that within all this activity the
needs of the most vulnerable young people, those who do not see
employment as a right or an aspiration[44],
will become lost as the impact of the recession plays out across
the whole labour market.
6.5 More immediately, with the decision to end
the FJF in March 2011, many young people who are currently unemployed
and have been without work for nearly 6 months, who would have
been eligible for the programme in the coming weeks will have
had their expectations raised and dashed. Their only hope for
employment has been taken away. The gap between the end of the
FJF and the start of the new Work Programme in the summer of 2011
will mean a substantial cohort of young people with languish for
months without real employment opportunities and will become further
removed from the labour market.
7. HOW THE
TRANSITION FROM
FJF TO THE
WORK PROGRAMME
WILL BE
MANAGED, INCLUDING
THE PART
TO BE
PLAYED BY
THE GOVERNMENT'S
PROPOSAL TO
FUND NEW
APPRENTICESHIPS.
7.1 We are pleased that the Government is seeking
new ways to support unemployed young people through the New Work
Programme and apprenticeships. This should present a real chance
to ensure that opportunities are available for all young people,
and in particular for those with additional needs, who are vulnerable
and likely to be out of work for the longest period of time. We
are pleased that under the New Work Programme providers will be
paid predominantly for sustained job outcomes with higher payments
for the hardest to help[45].
We would like to ensure that the Government includes those young
people who we believe are the "hardest to help" such
as care leavers, young carers, young offender, lone parents, incapacity
claimants and disabled young people.
7.2 It must be noted however that the reduction
in employment opportunities during a recession and the concurrent
increased risk attached to business investment in "on the
job" training means that we need to identify the "best"
initiatives to address the issue and to do this urgently.
7.3 The most vulnerable young people need extra
support during this economic downturn so that they are equipped
to take advantage of future opportunities. We are therefore pleased
that the Government is proposing funding new apprenticeships and
with this in mind we would like to highlight Youth Build (example
below), a supported apprenticeship service. This service is not
seen much outside the third sector and we believe that this is
an ideal way of supporting vulnerable young people into training
and employment.
Action for Children Service - Youth Build
Action for Children plays a key role in providing
supported apprenticeships through programmes designed to
increase work experience and provide accreditation on key skills.
Action for Children Scotland's innovative Youthbuild
model offers training and employment opportunities in the
construction industry for vulnerable young people. Scotland has
one of the highest rates in Europe of unemployment among young
people.
An independent evaluation of the Youthbuild programme
(2007) highlighted the successes of the Youthbuild programme.
These findings include:
- Up to 80 per cent success rate across the three
projects for helping young people move into employment following
their involvement in the programme;
- high completion rates for the programme, with
32 of the 43 young people who entered the programme completing
and moving into either construction or some other form of employment;
- considerable savings of working with this cohort
- for example, the annual cost for a male in a youth offenders'
institution is estimated at £47,000
A three year longitudinal study of this work has
been commissioned with the first year report due out at the end
of September; the emerging findings from this work show that:
- The major strength of Youthbuild is the offer
of paid employment once the six week training has been completed,
which attracts young people, keeps them engaged, and provides
hope for the future, which raises their aspirations.
- Its balance of practical skills training, Personal
Social Development and supported employment has proved a successful
formula.
- The approach is not only helping young people
to gain employment related skills, but it is having significant
positive impacts on young people's relationships, income, and
risk management. In particular a number of young people are reporting
that they are keeping out of trouble with the police because they
know they now have something to lose.
16 September 2010
36 We did have a grant award
to deliver 200 vacancies; our contract like others had a time-order-variation
option which meant we could recruit past our end date on the 30
June. However, under the new Government rules this option was
removed- meaning that out final figures are below the original
bid. We were confident that we would have recruited the full
amount by August 2010. This would have included posts in our
head office and in one of our schools. Back
37
For the purpose of this submission we will not use the acronym
"NEET" as young people have told us that they find it
stigmatising. We will therefore not abbreviate. Back
38
We understand vulnerable young people to be, care leavers, young
carers, young offenders, disabled young people. Young people with
mental health and behavioural problems, those who have large gaps
in their education, due to poor attendance and leaving school
early, negative relationships within their families and with peers
and coming from families where they may be the third generation
to be unemployed, reliant on benefits, having few or no role models
or support. Back
39
About 1.9million children now live in workless homes, the Office
for National Statistics, September 2010. Back
40
Action for Children works with 156,000 children, young people
and their families at around 420 UK projects. For 140 years, it
has been supporting some of the most vulnerable people in the
country, helping them transform their lives and realise their
potential. We provide a range of high-quality, flexible and innovative
services that meet the complex and diverse needs of children and
young people across the UK. Back
41
Young people with learning difficulties and disabilities are twice
as likely to be NEET as those without - DCSF, Reducing
the proportion of 16-18 year olds NEET: The Strategy, 2009.
Back
42
Centre for Social Justice and LGA (2009) hidden talents II
supports this argument and states that "there is mounting
evidence that young people continue to mature for longer than
was originally thought… and that people's passage into adulthood
is likely to be more prolonged and unpredictable". Back
43
Approximately 80 out of possible 85 supervisors of FJF employees
across England, Wales and Scotland attended the sessions. Back
44
Action for Children through our range of services works with those
young people who will be hardest hit by this economic downturn.
For example, in interviews with young women using our care leavers'
services pre and post recession, their answers about the impact
of the recession were ambiguous. While very worried about not
being able to find a job or make ends meet, these young women
did not see the recession itself as the problem - the problems
they were facing were too deeply engrained and persistent. Back
45
Helping people back into work, DWP
http://dwp.gov.uk/about-dwp/customer-delivery/jobcentre-plus/stakeholders-and-partnerships/keeping-in-touch/in-touch-july-2010/ Back
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