Changing the lives of 2000 young people in the UK

Grace was keen to have a fresh start after her rebellious teenage years. She started her business journey on our Enterprise course, and now has her own successful high street salon.

A rebellious streak in her teenage years saw Grace getting involved with the wrong crowd, dropping out of school and leaving home at the age of 15.

A year later she was taking drugs, and suffered physical and verbal abuse. At the age of 17, Grace, who also has Tourettes Syndrome, became pregnant and felt despondent about her future.

Showing great courage and determination, she got herself clean from drugs, reconciled with her parents, gained her GCSEs while a single parent and put herself through college to gain NVQ qualifications in beauty therapy and nail technology. While claiming benefits she heard about our Enterprise programme, which helps unemployed young people to start up in business, and soon opened her high street salon.

Although she felt limited by her lack of business knowledge and experience, she worked closely with her mentor on areas such as sales, marketing, pricing, accounts and customer service, while ongoing monthly meetings have given her the confidence to build up a successful business that made over £30,000 profit in its second year, now employs four staff members and has a regular client base of over 1,000 people.

“There is no doubt that the Enterprise programme was the turning point in my life. I didn’t want to be just a young single mother relying on benefits and had always wanted to make a go of running my own business but had no idea how to go about it.”

"Now, thanks to the support of The Prince’s Trust, I am a good role model for my son, am doing something I really enjoy and have a life that is full of great things."