£2m boost to help young people earn or learn across England

Youth Futures Foundation has announced new targeted support for marginalised young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) or at risk of becoming NEET.  

As part of its Evidence into Action programme, Youth Futures will be investing in eight organisations to design, deliver, and evaluate evidence-based interventions to support young people across the country into good work. 

The funding follows worrying figures released last month by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which revealed that almost 1 million young people are not earning or learning – the highest levels in a decade. 

Supporting practitioners, employers, funders, and commissioners across the youth sector, Evidence into Action will be critical to helping organisations understand and implement evidence-informed change to create brighter futures for young people.  

The application and assessment process was co-designed by an advisory group of young people and practitioners to ensure their ideas and thoughts were prioritised in the funding decisions.  

The funding supports a range of organisations using enriching activities in sports, arts, culture, media, and enterprise to help young people progress toward and into meaningful work. Successful organisations include IMO Charity, Rise Up, Making Education a Priority, Miss Macaroon, Punch Records, Sports Key, Fully Focused Community Trust and Ultra Education, all of which will receive up to £75,000 per year, for up to three years.

The Youth Futures Youth Employment Toolkit identifies vocational training as a positive intervention for supporting young people into employment. Building on insights from the Toolkit, the eight grant holders will develop vocational training for young people facing additional employment barriers. Youth Futures will harness the programme’s learning to strengthen the evidence base, shaping the design and practice of future youth employment initiatives. 

Commenting on the announcement, Barry Fletcher, CEO at Youth Futures Foundation, said: 

“Trusted local delivery organisations are vital to tackling the worsening NEET challenge in this country and to helping us understand what works to ensure every young person can achieve good work. 

“We look forward to working with these organisations to turn evidence into action – investing in proven solutions that open doors for young people now and shape a stronger future for youth employment. By driving systemic change across the sector, we aim to inspire both practitioners and funders alike to back approaches that truly make a difference.” 

Dewan, an Evidence into Action Advisory Group Member, commented: 

“The Evidence into Action programme is an exciting and vital initiative that puts young people’s voices and real-world experience at the heart of driving change. Being part of the advisory group has been incredibly rewarding – the process felt inclusive, and it was great to see ideas and insights from practitioners being valued and integrated.  

“This programme has the potential to make a real difference by ensuring employability support is grounded in evidence and tailored to the unique needs of young people. I’d love to be on future initiatives and see these programmes progress.” 

The programme will also benefit from learning and development support from Centre for Evidence and Implementation and the Edge Foundation, who have been commissioned as evaluation and learning partners to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme, and support the eight successful delivery partners access and implement the existing evidence base into their work 

Youth Futures has also partnered with Action for Race Equality, who will offer the organisations support as strategic infrastructure partner, building their capacity to be in the best possible position to deliver their work and supporting their  learning through developing, testing and piloting approaches. 

Jeremy Crook OBE, Chief Executive at Action for Race Equality, said: 

“ARE are pleased to be working with Youth Futures Foundation as their Strategic Partner on Evidence into Action, to support ethnically diverse civil society organisations tackling systemic youth unemployment with their organisational development to help them sustain and grow, so they can continue to carry out important work to address youth unemployment disparities for ethnic minority young people.”