5 key approaches to supporting young people into employment

The impact of the pandemic on young people has compounded the challenges they face, with the most disadvantaged at a risk of becoming long-term unemployed.

Among the measures introduced by government to prevent and tackle long-term youth unemployment are the Expanded Youth Offer, particularly Youth Hubs, Kickstart and Restart. The success of these will be highly dependent on the extent to which partnership work, across local authorities, education providers, and voluntary and community organisations, can be achieved. 

However, developing effective youth employment partnerships is easier said than done. Partnership journeys are complex, requiring significant investment of time and resources, and partnerships focused on disadvantaged young people need highly dynamic approaches, and tightly linked nets of support extending beyond employment to tackle the complex issues these young people face. 

As part of a Health Foundation-funded project on improving access to good quality work, IES has developed a set of ‘what works’ resources, including a partnership guide and case study collection. These aim to support services looking to design and develop or improve delivery of youth employment interventions through effective partnership, and highlight principles and practical steps. The evidence is distilled into four key components:

• Developing partnerships with strong foundations, by developing a ‘true partnership’ ethos, establishing no wrong doors, joining up resources and sharing knowledge, involving young people in service design, and understanding the local context and the challenges and opportunities it provides.

• Managing partners effectively through shared committee meetings to establish and review partnership working, alongside well-managed referral approaches, information governance and monitoring and evaluation approaches

• Providing high quality support journeys to young people through coherent and joined-up pathways and holistic approaches, including practical and emotional components alongside in-work support, to help young people sustain positive destinations.

• Engaging employers in meaningful and sustainable ways, by developing varied and long-term approaches, investing in dedicated employer engagement resources, enhancing education and business links, and focusing on quality at every stage when brokering opportunities. 

A practical example is the MyGo programme, a youth employment support service that ran in Suffolk. MyGo integrated JCP within the MyGo ‘brand’ with the aim of creating a unified and youth-friendly service, and seamless support journey. This involved shared staff uniforms, joint social events, client registration meetings where both JCP and MyGo coaches were present, and a shared client caseload. MyGo also provided a wide range of employment-focused support including on job applications, online tests and interview preparation, and support with recruitment and screening for employers to align young people’s aspirations and skills with opportunities. Two-fifths of MyGo participants were not claiming benefits when referred, indicating how the highly integrated and coordinated approach was key to engage hard-to-reach young people and support them into positive and sustainable opportunities. 

A further example of these principles in practice can be seen in the Youth Employment Gateway (YEG) programme, aimed at supporting young people claiming benefits into sustained employment. The programme focused on joined up and collaborative work to develop and source high quality provision, ensure resource efficiency and intervention effectiveness. To do this, the YEG team developed joint ventures with JCP to improve relationships with advisors and increase referrals, collaborated with LA departments (homeless units, debt advisers, council tax officers, Troubled Families teams, etc.) to source wrap-around support for participants with more complex needs, and partnered with local providers to develop provision which was not previously available. 

Effective collaborative and referral practices were key success factors of the YEG and contributed to the intervention notably surpassing its outcome targets in Phase 1 of the programme (829 participants moved into work against a target of 590, 439 participants achieved a 26-week job outcome).

These case studies provide an example of how principles and practice interact in developing effective youth employment partnerships, which the What Works resources explore in-depth. The resources provide versatile and flexible tools, developed with a view to being adapted to accommodate different types of partnerships across the charity, educational, and public sectors.

Cristiana Orlando is a health foundation research fellow at the Institute of Employment Studies