European Social Fund

The European Social Fund (ESF) was set up to improve employment opportunities in the European Union and so help raise standards of living. It aims to assist people fulfil their potential by giving them better skills and better job prospects.

The South London Sub Regional Unit has a strong record of achievement in delivering ESF programmes and has been successful in securing additional funding to support young people in education across South London through to 2014.

Our innovative and flexible projects are delivered with partner organisation across South London and involve the following:

On Track Project:

Project Scope:

The ESF On Track Project aims to enable young people who are at risk of NEET to sustain their engagement in a range of EET options for a minimum of 2 terms or 26 weeks by providing a wrap around service of mentoring and activities that supports them in progressing. The project is being delivered across SW London.

It builds on previous ESF funded NEET related projects, addressing three critical factors that result in high levels of NEET in South West (SW) London:

Over 400 young people annually with poor attendance and performance and low aspirations fail to go into a learning or employment opportunity at the beginning of Year 12.

A small group of young people have already disengaged from learning before Y11 and reject post 16 EET participation before they reach 16.

More than 650 FE entrants cannot cope with their new Year 12 programme or environment and drop out within weeks of starting in College, 78% into NEET.

Providers:

The project is being delivered by an experienced and established partnership of providers using Support Workers who are highly skilled in working with this group.

The RBK-SRU manages the partnership of organisations which will be responsible for the delivery of action plans, mentoring and activities, this consist of:

Carshalton College

CfBT include

Kingston Adult Education

Head to Head Training

Nightingale School

Jace Training

Prospects Services

John Ruskin College

Sutton and District Training

These organisations work closely with the schools/colleges in which the target groups are located. Schools accommodate Workers when they are working with participants, and liaise to support participants. This approach worked very effectively in previous projects and schools fed back very positively on the experience.

All our providers are located in SW London and the project provides full coverage across the cluster.

All providers have strong track records of delivering services to young people in SW London for over 5 years. They have close working relationships with those schools with high at risk of NEET populations because of their involvement in alternative learning provision for disengaged 14-16 year olds and providing advice and support to students. These established partnerships not only ensure project success in terms of recruitment and delivery but also cement progression routes for young people.

Providers also have strong links with employers through Apprenticeship training and employer engagement programmes.

Programme Delivery

Programmes are delivered by a team of Support Workers with caseloads of 40-50 young people, working in partnership with schools and Post 16 providers. School and college teaching staff initially identify participants and refer them into the programme.

Each programme is flexible and customised to need, using a 4 phase intervention and learning progression model:

A person centred, individual action plan is created after a focused needs assessment. This is done using customised project paperwork but will refer to the CAF framework which is used by local youth support services. The Action Plan will identify goals for sustained re-engagement and the activities, mentoring and other support needed to achieve goals. It is reviewed continuously as part of mentoring to monitor progress and update goal setting. A personalised programme of individual and group learning activities drawn from a wide menu that wraps around the young person’s mainstream learning to:

Re-engage them by using sports, music, visits to activity centres and taster days;
Tackle barriers to progression through sessions on issues like managing finances, anger management, housing support, coping with new environments;
Build team work skills and tackle skills deficits through small group exercises;
Motivate young people to plan their future and develop aspirations by provider and employer visits and motivational workshops;
Develop opportunity accessing skills like CV development, form filling and interview preparation.

One to one engagement and progression sessions which establish or re-establish the participant in learning or employment. Where young people are progressing into a new opportunity these will help the participant identify suitable opportunities, fill out application forms and attend interviews. The worker will advise parents, advocate on behalf of young people, de-brief participants after interviews, help them prepare for the start of courses. Where the aim is retention the mentoring will address issues like attendance, timekeeping, managing finances, effective use of learning support and coping with personal problems.
Continued one to one mentoring support to ensure the participant settles into their new learning or employment opportunity. Strong relationships with the employer or training provider are built so that difficulties can be addressed promptly. The Worker ensures that the participant is aware of relevant support mechanisms; help them fill out forms for financial support; keeps in weekly contact to ensure that problems leading to drop out have not developed; advocates over difficulties; helps them identify new learning or support needs and ensures they have a plan for the future.

Throughout the programme the initial action plan agreed with the participant is reviewed and updated with progress against objectives monitored.

For further information please contact:

Veronika Moore
ESF Projects Coordinator
veronikamoore@rbksru.org.uk