2024 Autumn Newsletter

2024 Autumn Newsletter

A note from our CEO:

I’m excited to present this term’s highlights as we near the end of the year and reflect on our achievements from the beginning of the academic year. 

It has been a busy start to the new academic year. We have continued to deliver our coaching and employability activities to young people across our three programmes described below. Young people have told us they have enjoyed insights into a variety of sectors, including construction, luxury fashion, finance, hospitality and law.  

This term we were delighted to launch our first ever research report, outlining the findings of the evaluation of Phase One of our Future Leaders programme. We also hosted a webinar to discuss the findings and our recommendations. You can read more about this below. 

Programme Delivery:

Our FutureMe Programme:

Supporting young people who face barriers to employment

We currently deliver our FutureMe programme in 16 schools in London, Nottingham and Kent. Our coaches support young people who face barriers to employment, to help them develop the confidence, independence and skills they need to successfully transition from school to work.

We have also been delivering extra support to young women on our FutureMe programme in London, through our She Speaks project. Hear about the impact the project has had already by watching this video.

Our Making Strides Programme:

Supporting young people with learning disabilities and autism

Our Making Strides programme provides coaching and workplace insights for young adults with learning disabilities and/or autism in London and Birmingham.

We are currently looking for employers to attend our Reverse Jobs Fairs in London (February 2025) and Birmingham (March 2025). Our Reverse Jobs Fair is an inclusive job creation initiative. It redefines traditional job-seeking for young adults with learning disabilities and/or autism, encouraging them to showcase their skills and aspirations in a supportive and engaging environment.

About Reverse Jobs Fairs:

  • Empowering Preparation: Young people receive tailored support to craft CVs, build LinkedIn profiles, and prepare elevator pitches. Presentation boards display their achievements and aspirations, giving them confidence to engage with employers.
  • Collaborative Employer Engagement: Pre-event sessions equip employers with inclusive recruitment strategies, fostering an atmosphere of understanding and collaboration and breaking the traditional cycle of more passive interaction.
  • Inclusive Format: Held at an accessible youth hub/space, the event uses a carousel approach, ensuring every employer connects with every participant.

If you are an employer in London or Birmingham with live vacancies, and you are interested in attending our Reverse Jobs Fair to meet our jobseekers, please email us here.

Our Future Leaders programme:

Supporting Black young people and South Asian young women at risk of excusion

In September we began delivery of Phase Two of our Future Leaders programme. Phase Two supports young Black students and South Asian young women in Brent, Ealing and Hammersmith & Fulham. Young people will experience one-to-one coaching, peer mentoring, and employability activities, as well as business mentoring from Black and South Asian professionals.

In November we launched our research report, outlining findings from Phase One of the programme. We also hosted a webinar with a panel of experts in the race equity and exclusion fields who discussed the findings. You can watch it here.

Finally, if you would like to hear more about the impact of Phase One, you can hear directly from young people who participated in the programme, by watching this video.

Fundraising:

Big Give Campaign

We are thrilled to have surpassed our ambitious Big Give Campaign target of £100,000, raising a total of £122,605. This is an increase on the £60,000 we raised during the Big Give last year, and we are extremely grateful for all the extra support. These funds are vital for us to continue our work supporting young people who are most in need of extra support to help them transition into employment. A huge thank you on behalf of everyone at ThinkForward to everyone who generously donated or shared our campaign with your networks – we really appreciate your support.

 

2024 Summer Newsletter

2024 Summer Newsletter

A note from our CEO:

As this academic year comes to an end, we are delighted to update our supporters on some highlights from the summer term.   

During the summer term we delivered our annual business mentoring programme to all schools on our FutureMe programme, giving young people the opportunity to receive career advice, CV tips and mock interview practice from employees. We have also been mobilising some exciting new projects and programmes for our young people. Please read on to learn more about them.  

 

We are also delighted to have welcomed a new school into our cohort of Nottingham schools. Thank you to Bluecoat Trent Academy for partnering with us, we look forward to working with you and supporting your students over the coming years.  

We would also like to give a huge shoutout to our amazing Nottingham team who took part in a Tough Mudder and raised a whopping £1350 which will go towards supporting young people on our programmes as they transition into employment. Their fundraising page is still open, you can support them here. 

I’d like to say a huge thank you to all of our schools, funders, business partners and volunteers for your support during this academic year.   

This newsletter includes:

> Launching new programmes

> Youth-led project in partnership with the Blagrave Trust

> Our Youth Advisory Board

> Fundraising 

Programme Delivery:

Launching new programmes:

This term has been extremely busy and exciting as we have mobilised and launched new programmes. Delivery of our Making Strides programme has kicked off in London, Birmingham and Sandwell, working with young adults with learning disabilities and autism to support them to transition into sustained employment. We have also been prepping for delivery of the second phase of our Future Leaders programme to commence in September 2024, onboarding new schools in West London.  

We also began delivery of our new young women’s project in partnership with City Bridge Foundation. Young women have been taking part in introductory workshops where they have enjoyed discussing inspirational women. Young women will be taking part in a creative workshop over the summer holidays where they will be learning more about issues young women can face and designing an art piece campaigning for change.

Youth-led project in partnership with The Blagrave Trust:

Over this academic year, young people have been trained and supported to collect data through surveys, focus groups and interviews. This month they presented their findings to The Blagrave Trust, ThinkForward and employers in Kent, to provide insight into the barriers to employment young people in Kent can face. 

We are extremely grateful to The Blagrave Trust for funding this opportunity for our young people. 

Read our young people’s research findings here.

Our Youth Advisory Board:

It has been a busy term for young people on our Youth Advisory Board (YAB). Young people have attended monthly meetings and have fed into discussions involving ethical funding decisions and ThinkForward’s values. It has been great to see them developing their leadership and communication skills. YAB members have also been designing a research survey into how young people would like to report safeguarding and bullying concerns. We look forward to sharing their findings.  

Fundraising:

On Saturday 14th September, a team of ThinkForward employees will take part in the 10th Impetus Triathlon to raise money to improve young people’s lives. Darach, Phoebe and Sha will be running, swimming and cycling in a tremendous effort to raise £1200 for ThinkForward so we can continue coaching young people to achieve their goals. If you would like to donate, please click here.

2024 Spring Newsletter

2024 Spring Newsletter

A note from our CEO:

 

I hope you have had a wonderful start to 2024. As we approach the end of the spring term, I am thrilled to share some highlights from the past few months.

It has been a particularly busy term for us, as we have launched new exciting initiatives tailored to different groups of young people who we will be supporting over the next couple of years. You can read more about these below.

Charlene Theophile – Director of Programmes, Patrice Etienne – Head of Inclusion Programmes, and I had the honour of attending a celebratory event hosted by The Careers & Enterprise 

Company (CEC) at the House of Lords earlier this month. We were recognised by Nicky Morgan as a Careers Champion in the Chair’s Choice category for our Future Leaders programme, in partnership with the GLA and supported by 7PK. It was fantastic to see our work being recognised for its achievements.

This term, we also released our 2022/2023 annual review. The review shines a light on the powerful impact that our work has had on young people. It includes insights from young people, parents and business partners, and quantifies the effect that our unique coaching and employability programmes are having. We also hosted our annual Thanking Day to share our gratitude to our funders and partners. I had the pleasure of speaking with some of our supporters to express our thanks and share updates on our work. 

This newsletter includes:

> Tailoring our FutureMe Programme

> Our supported employment programmes

> Our work to tackle school exclusion

> Recruitment 

Programme Delivery:

Tailoring our FutureMe Programme:

As we announced in our e-newsletter last term, we were delighted to kick off a brand-new project with young people identifying as women on our FutureMe programme earlier this month. 

The project will support young women to develop employability action plans and gain skills to achieve their goals. Young women will experience gender-based group coaching, peer mentoring and employability activities, involving female business volunteers in work. 

Through this work, young women will develop the confidence, mindsets and skills needed to secure and sustain employment. They will also develop a collective voice to tackle gender inequalities in the workplace and influence employers to create inclusive recruitment practices. 

We’re currently looking for business partners to support this project. If you are interested in getting involved, please contact nicolette.bassan@thinkforward.org.uk.

Our supported employment programmes:

In March, we were delighted to host a celebration event in London to mark the end of our DFN-MoveForward programme.

Our young people, school partners, funders, business partners and commissioners came together to celebrate the impact of the DFN-MoveForward programme over the last five years. We heard from young people and guest speakers including a parent, a school partner, a business partner and our programme commissioners. It truly demonstrated the power of collaboration in achieving positive employment outcomes for young people with a learning disability or autism.

We are thrilled that 46% of young people on our programme who were work-ready have transitioned into sustained employment, which is almost ten times the national average of 4.8% of adults with learning disabilities and autism being in paid work. We couldn’t have achieved this success without the support of all our partners, helping us to provide coaching and workplace insights for our young people.

We also announced the launch of our new Making Strides programme that will be working with young adults with learning disabilities and/or autism in London and the West Midlands. We are looking forward to commencing this programme in April.

Our work to tackle school exclusion:

This month, our Future Leaders programme came to the end of its two-year pilot. We have supported 60 black male students in Year 11 to access coaching, work experience, work insight days and mentoring opportunities with black role models. We are delighted that 85% of our Future Leaders have transitioned into post-16 destinations.

We will be continuing this area of our work in 2024. Please keep an eye on our e-newsletters and social media to hear more about our future plans.

“The first couple of times I had meetings with [my coach] I was kind of sceptical about it because stuff like this has happened in the past. It’s never really materialised. But I’ve had meetings with Patrice, and over time, I’ve become more comfortable being able to talk to him about stuff that I wouldn’t really talk to other people about, as well as the fact that he’s also giving me opportunities to help basically brighten my future.”

– Future Leaders Student

Recruitment:

We’re currently recruiting for an Employability Events & Partnerships Manager in London.

We are looking for someone who shares our ambition that every young person has the confidence, independence and skills they need for a better and brighter future. As part of our Development team, our Employability Events & Partnerships Managers play a key role in holding some of our valuable employer relationships and through the delivery of our essential ‘ready for work’ activities. If you have experience facilitating engaging and inclusive employability activities to equip young people for further education and sustained employment, this could be the role for you. 

For details on how to apply, please click here.