ThinkForward was delighted to receive the 2019 National Business Mentoring Award in the category National Mentoring Award – England.

The awards publicly recognise excellence in the field of mentoring that creates “real inspirational mentoring role models across every sector of business, education, sport and society”.

ThinkForward’s Business Mentoring Programme was chosen “to recognise an individual or organisation that has made a positive contribution by mentoring those living in England”.

ThinkForward runs mentoring as part of its five-year coaching programme to support disadvantaged young people who are at high risk of unemployment to get ready for the world of work. We deliver this in London, Nottingham and Kent in partnership with 18 local businesses and schools.

We began a business mentoring programme in 2013 in recognition of the huge benefit to young people of meeting regularly with, and learning from a working, professional person. Mentors build meaningful relationships, share their experiences, impart advice and encouragement, and help to break down barriers and perceptions about the world of work.

 

Year 10 students (aged 14) take part in face-to-face mentoring with volunteer staff from companies including JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, Cook and Experian. ThinkForward provides training and each session follows a clear curriculum focusing on a particular theme each time e.g. how to present yourself in a professional environment and for job interviews. 180 young people take part every year.

ThinkForward is always looking for new businesses to partner with to provide young people with valuable exposures to working life and different industries. If you’re interested in getting your business involved, please contact info@thinkforward.org.uk.

If you would like to read more about the National Mentoring Awards, click here: https://nationalmentoringawards.org/

Students from Bradfields Academy in Chatham braved the cold, wind and rain to take part in the first in a series of work experience placements at the heritage farm park, Kent Life.

The young people, who all have mild to moderate learning disabilities, spent time looking after animals, doing ground maintenance and working in the tea room. It’s all part of an initiative between ThinkForward and Kent Life in Maidstone to provide a day of work experience every month until at least September for a group of 12 students.

ThinkForward runs a long-term coaching programme in Bradfields Academy called MoveForward, which supports students into sustainable paid employment. Work experience is a vital part of preparing all young people to get ready to find a job, but it can be difficult to find employers who have the time and resources to host them. At the same time there is competition for places from other schools and employability programmes.

Alison Miller, education and employment coordinator at ThinkForward said: ‘Regular work experience at Kent Life is a fantastic opportunity for the students and the aim is that they will each get at least three visits. By providing consistent and ongoing placements, Kent Life is acting as a role model to other local employers.

‘Young people can gain an understanding of their skill set, different work environments, what jobs they enjoy and areas they can improve upon. This will help them to make informed decisions about their future as well as building a local talent pool of work-ready young people.’

The students all enjoyed their day despite the inclement weather. Bobby who is 17 said: ‘I’m interested in doing car mechanics so I hope I can get to use some of the tractors and machinery on another visit. But at the end of the day I don’t know exactly what job I want to do, so it’s really good to get experience of something new.’

Fifteen-year-old Keziah believes that the placements are relevant for what she would like to do when she’s older: ‘I fed the chickens and collected the eggs and cleaned out the rabbits. It was fun and hard work. It’s good to come here because it gives me experience of what a real job is like. When I leave school, I’d like to teach people how to ride horses and the next time I’m here I would like to be able to look after and muck out the farm’s horses.’

Amelia, 17, got the best job of the day working indoors in the warm tea room. She explained: ‘First I had a tour of the kitchen and then I made the baguettes. I learned how to make different drinks like coffees and hot chocolate using the big machine which was a lot different from doing it at home. The clue is in the name ‘work experience’ – it was all good experience and I can now see myself working somewhere like this doing catering. I enjoyed it a lot.’

Nikki Thomson is the lead teaching assistant for the sixth form at Bradfields Academy. She said: ‘This has been fabulous for the students. Everybody mucked in and had a go. It has given the young people a real sense of worth and they can see the reasons for doing it.

‘It can be hard to get the students work experience and it’s fantastic that Kent Life is providing meaningful placements. The students want to do proper jobs and being here allows them to see that they can. Coming regularly means they get a chance to progress and do different things. The staff were fantastic because they explained what to do then left them to get on with it, which was really nice because the students were given the responsibility.’

Natalie Cox, general manager at Kent Life said: ‘We are very proud to provide regular work experience and volunteer placements as we believe Kent Life has so much to offer. We work with many different companies, schools and colleges year-round and our team are dedicated to helping our volunteers learn and grow with genuine hands-on experience. The volunteers’ input and enthusiasm are invaluable to us and it is also an extremely rewarding scheme for our team to be a part of.’

As 2018 draws to a close we’re taking the opportunity to look back on some ThinkForward highlights.

We continue to reach the most disengaged young people

876 young people in London, Nottingham and Kent were able to receive personalised support from a coach. In each region we celebrated young people’s achievements at events that brought together the partners who make our work possible. In London and Nottingham, awards ceremonies recognised young people who had travelled the furthest in terms of their progress and their ability to inspire others to engage in the programme. In Kent over ten young people were able to present their stories at a thank you event, after just one year of support from their coaches.

Connor from Strood Academy said: ‘My coach went through different jobs with me and he improved my knowledge about my career path and where I wanted that to lead. Now I know what sort of job I want to do and how to get there. I couldn’t have done that without my coach.’

Our new programme DFN-MoveForward is growing

The DFN-MoveForward programme working with young people with mild to moderate learning disabilities, successfully concluded its pilot year and also expanded into three schools in the West Midlands with five years of funding from a Social Impact Bond supported by the Government’s Life Chances Fund. The pilot evaluation told us that of the schools who said they use other external providers, in some cases more than thirty others, they all ranked DFN-MoveForward as their number one, a great endorsement of our first year.

Our young people benefited from tailored employability experiences

In all our regions we ran a packed and wide-ranging summer programme of employability activities with employer partners including Waitrose, Kirkland & Ellis, Toni & Guy, Cook and KPMG. Every event was designed to meet the future career interests of our young people.

We diversified and grew our donor base

In 2018 we forged new strategic funding partnerships including the London Mayor’s Young Londoners Fund and Big Lottery. ThinkForward is grateful to continue working with other strategic partners including the Epic Foundation, Impetus-PEF and the Kent Community Foundation.

We raised our profile

2018 was also an important year for influencing government and raising our profile. We had evidence published in three separate enquiries covering social mobility, the importance of evidence based early intervention and participation in culture and sport for preparing for employment. We were thrilled to win our first prestigious award – The City of London Dragon Award – recognising the success of our partnership with an alternative provision school in Tower Hamlets and asset management firm, ICG. ThinkForward also won highly commended in UK Youth’s Youth Organisation of the Year. We featured on TV, with our coach at Ellis Guilford in Nottingham taking part in a series on ITV’s Central Tonight which follows her student Morgan’s journey on ThinkForward. You can find out more about it here.

ThinkForward made an important appointment recruiting our new CEO, Ashley McCaul, who started in November. She’s a strong supporter of social mobility and has held senior positions in the not-for-profit and education sectors for more than 20 years. For the last 13 years she led the charity, London Skills for Growth, a post-16 education provider with bases across east and south east London. 

As we establish ourselves in four regions delivering two programmes Ashley will lead ThinkForward’s growth for the future. She said: ‘I am struck by the range of what has been achieved throughout 2018. None of that would have been possible without the incredible support we get from our funders, business partners and schools. I’m relishing the opportunity to lead ThinkForward into a new and action-packed 2019.’

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