School to work transition

She Speaks: International Women’s Day Exhibition

She Speaks: International Women's Day Exhibition

The She Speaks project supports young women to develop the skills and confidence they need to secure employment. The project provides one-to-one coaching from a female coach, as well as employability activities, where young women can hear career journeys and advice from female employees from a range of industries.

Young women also have the opportunity to attend a creative workshop to learn about the history of women’s equality and design campaign posters about issues that resonate with them. The exhibition below displays the posters that the young women have created over the past year.

Exhibition:

Youth-led peer research project with The Blagrave Trust

ThinkForward post-16 young people in Kent designed a research project on the various barriers young people face in securing positive employment opportunities.

Young people were trained and supported to collect data through surveys, focus groups and interviews and 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.

The young people created a presentation to share their research findings:

Celebrating National Apprenticeship Week

This week to celebrate National Careers and Apprenticeship Week we sat down with ThinkForward’s three apprentices, Nargis, Aaliyah and Justas.

What made you want to apply for an apprenticeship?

I applied to be a ThinkForward apprentice as I wanted to gain more maturity by working with people who had experience in what I wanted to do. Being a ThinkForward participant when I was in school, I was really excited when the opportunity to join the ThinkForward team came up. Working for ThinkForward I know that I’m helping others and actually making a difference – Justas.

Being an apprentice is not easy. Making sure you’re on top of work and school is a challenge. But I knew I wanted to apply for an apprenticeship after my sister completed one and I saw how great it was for her career and how it opened up so many job opportunities in what she wanted to work in – Aaliyah.

If you had one piece of advice for others thinking about doing an apprenticeship, what would it be?

Working for ThinkForward has had an amazing impact on my mindset and my life. Somewhere along the journey this experience became more than just a job but became a passion and something I absolutely love doing. It has also opened a lot of doors for me and prepared me for my future career – Nargis.

An apprenticeship gives you so many good experiences and opportunities. I am learning from my mistakes and so many things from my colleagues too – Justas.