By Juno Schwarz | Fundraising and Communications Manager
Since April 2018, our new Head of Corporate Engagement, Lucy, supported 27 young care-experienced people into exciting work placmenent opportunities with our 40+ corporate partners across London!
Assisting young people to successfully move into sustainable employment and independence is a team effort and at Drive Forward we’re lucky to have a highly skilled and committed team. Our four Employment Consultants are the backbone of our work, providing vital 1-2-1 support and guidance to enable individuals to smoothly manage their transition into the workplace.
On the other end of our service offer are our partnerships with employers from different sectors and industries, from banking to hospitality, to advertising and PR, to law and construction. What they offer to the young people working with us is the opportunity to gain invaluable experience in different workplace environments.
This carefully crafted and ever developing network of committed partners across the city is what makes the Drive Forward approach so successful and helps the charity stand out. Providing young individuals with the opportunity to make new experiences, broaden their horizons, gain new skills and increase their knowledge, has the power of inspiring a new generation of motivated young people dedicated to making a difference to their own lives as well as for the good of society.
Many of the young people working with Drive Forward would not have had this unique opportunity without your vital support!
The Closing the Gap Fund was established as a response to more and more young people missing out on such invaluable experiences as they feared that they would not be able to sustain themselves throughout an internship or similar work experience. Taking up paid employment, even if it’s just for a limited period of time, influences individual’s benefit payments significantly.
With no other safety net known to them apart from the public benefits system, young people with a background in care are especially prone to getting stuck in the benefits trap!
Thanks to your fantastic support, young people working with Drive Forward don’t have to worry about missing out anymore. They rest assured that the Closing the Gap Fund will support them in times of need, from sorting out their travel expenses, work clothes to covering their food bill until they receive their first paycheque.
Over the past 2 years, you’ve empowered Anna to follow her dream and start a tech apprenticeship with a prestigious company in the city. You’ve helped Colin to successfully obtain his CSCS card and start employment in construction. You’ve enabled Sephora to find a job that fits in with her responsibility as a mother. Thanks to you, Lynette was able to complete an exciting and aspirational work experience programme in advertising, and Peter gained a well-paid full-time position after completing 2 amazing internships with our partners in the city! There’s so many more talented young individuals that you’ve helped to aim higher and therefore we would like to say a BIG THANK YOU!
So, what’s new?
Whilst the past 2 years have seen many young people flourish in their chosen careers, we’ve increased our efforts to find new exciting opportunities for individuals as well as strengthening our longstanding partnerships with employers across London. The knowledge and experience gained through setting up and effectively managing this vital fund, have put us into a position of expertise. This has enabled us to voice strong arguments to improve young individuals’ experience when going into long-term or short-term employment.
Our committed Head of Corporate Engagement, Lucy, has put tremendous time and effort into negotiating bespoke support packages for motivated young people who have gained employment with our corporate partners. They take into account the specific needs of the individual young person as well as the resources and procedures of our partners, enabling them to effectively support care-experienced young people through their work experience. There’s many ways of easing the problem of young people being out of pocket for the first couple of weeks into a job. For example:
Support is tailored to both our partner’s and young person’s needs, with this Drive Forward and you, our fantastic supporters, still have a vital role to play. For example, one of our partners has a policy of only reimbursing travel zones 1-3. However, most of the young people working with Drive Forward live outside zone 3, which means that we’ve come to an agreement to split the bill. Another partner usually doesn’t allow their interns to take out pay advances, however, after listening to some of the stories we’ve shared with you in the past and understanding the underlying issues, they’ve found a way around their internal restrictions.
Fostering employer’s sensibility and openness towards the challenges faced by young care-experienced people when going into employment is hugely important to improve young peoples’ perspectives in the world of work. We’re very happy that our partners are paving the way towards a more flexible and consequential equal job market!
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