Education is an important investment in ourselves and our society. In the UK our school system is designed with an expectation that all children and young people will enjoy a good education, leading them to a good job which makes them happy and which pays them enough to enjoy a safe and secure life. We also expect our education system to ensure our young people are prepared to face any challenge that may arise, personally, in our communities and in wider society.
Young people with care experience don't always do as well in school as young people without care experience and as a result don't always get to enjoy the same exciting career options as their peers. The reasons for this are complex and have been well studied. What NNECL has learned through working with students, colleges, universities, foster carers, leaving care teams and academics is there are two challenges which must be urgently addressed by caring communities;
1 - creating nurturing environments where young people believe their aspirations are possible
2 - giving young people and the adults closest to them the information needed to make informed decisions about the future
At NNECL, we think that when society supports a young person in care to believe their career aspirations are achievable, we enable them to plan for bringing to life what they hope to achieve for themselves in the future. In order to meet aspirations about career pathways, university and further education, evidence suggests care experienced young people need to have the curious conversations that traditionally happen in family units, with trusted adults who can support and encourage them on their journey.
Our Inspire pilot has two core aims:
Firstly, we will make young people in care aware of the support available to them if they want to go to college, university or into an apprenticeship so they can reach their full educational potential.
Secondly, we will develop a suite of tools and activities giving adults an understanding of the routes to careers for the young people in care, as well as insights on the impact their support makes.
If you have any questions, please do get in touch: info@nnecl.org
Southwark Young Person Ambassador: To help guide our work, we recruited a Young Person Ambassador from Southwark, who attended discussions, refined our work and made sure young people’s voices were part of every step. Our ambassador also made sure our outcomes were relevant to Southwark.
Data Gathering: We launched two surveys, one for young people and one for adults. The young people’s survey helped us understand the support they have had (or haven’t had) with education and future plans. The adults’ survey helped us learn how confident they felt when supporting young people in these areas. Alongside the surveys, we carried out practitioner interviews. These conversations gave us valuable insight into what is working well, where improvements are needed, and what would make the biggest difference for young people. We also consulted with our members and wider network to understand what gaps there are in current working practices. All of this work is helping us build a clearer picture of what young people need and is shaping the next stage of Inspire.
Report: Shaunna, our Inspire lead, has been hard at work analysing all of the data gathered during the exploratory phase of the pilot. She has been reviewing insights, identifying key themes, and pulling together the trends that will help shape our next steps. We are now preparing a comprehensive report that will summarise our findings so far and highlight what they mean for the direction of the pilot. This will be shared with you soon.
As part of the next phase, we will begin developing three toolkits that respond directly to what we learned in the exploratory stage:
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Shaunna Devine is leading this pilot, she is care experienced and a PhD researcher at Liverpool John Moores University. Shaunna has a profound commitment to improving educational opportunities for young people with care backgrounds and has worked extensively in the education and social care sectors. Through Inspire, Shaunna strives to create an inclusive and supportive programme which gives young people with care experience access to the resources and support they need to thrive through education.
NNECL is a registered charity and we receive no public funds to deliver our work. This pilot has been made possible by the generous support of United St Saviour's, The Haberdashers Company, Lyles Local Fund, and the Allen Lane Foundation.
If you have any questions about Inspire, you would like to get involved or contribute to our work, please use the form below to get in touch with Shaunna.
