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Career Connect
Helping young people and adults create better futures through person-centred careers information, advice and guidance.
It's National Careers Week 2024 ?– and we’re launching our first LinkedIn newsletter.
High quality, impartial, careers information, advice, and guidance has never been more important.?
We know that Careers is about more than helping someone get a job.
It’s about raising aspirations, informing attitudes, and making the case for services that meet the changing needs of the people we support. ?
That’s why in Career Notes, we’ll be sharing our latest research, user voice perspective, and what works when it comes to providing impartial careers advice and guidance. ?
We’re proud to be a leader and a positive voice for the power of Careers to change futures.
Enjoy this first newsletter, and please do get in touch with us if you’d like to find out more.
Sheila Clark, CEO, Career Connect.
National consultation on the impact of careers advice launches today?
This Careers Week, we’re proud to launch our first ever stakeholder consultation.
‘Careers advice is vital for our future: assessing the evidence’ opens today (Wednesday 6 March, 2024).
?You can take part here: https://careerconnect.org.uk/career-connect-launches-national-consultation-on-evidence-for-impact-of-careers-guidance/
We’re inviting stakeholders to share their views and evidence on the long-term impact of impartial careers support; gaps in the current understanding of the impact of professional careers support; areas that warrant further research, and who is best placed to conduct that research.
Sheila Clark said: “The aim of this consultation is to provide the platform for a shared research and evaluation agenda across the sector, and to create a better understanding of the positive contribution that professional CEIAG can make to education and employment outcomes.
“We want it to help place our sector in a stronger and more informed position to converse with policy makers, especially when it comes to making the case for services that meet the changing needs of the people we support. I would encourage anyone in the careers sector, and those we work alongside, to take part.”
We will combine responses to the consultation with those from a roundtable, due to take place at Westminster this May.
This will be followed by publication of the findings, and a roadmap for future research in the sector.
To find out more about the consultation, contact Gary Mundy our Head of Research and Evaluation [email protected]
Changing lives in Sefton through early intervention?
We recently published?the results of a targeted early intervention programme in Sefton, Merseyside. The programme has led to an increase in positive education, employment and training destinations for young people when they reach the age of 16.
Our report offers an in-depth evaluation of the Sefton NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) Reduction and Early Intervention Service, which targets young people from Year 9 onwards who are identified as being ‘at risk of NEET’ due to a range of factors.
We have delivered the service, commissioned by Sefton Council via their Employment and Learning team, since 2019, when the Council moved from a solely post-16 model of careers support for NEET young people, to proactive intervention.
Of those pre-16 young people identified as being ‘At Risk of NEET’, and supported by Career Connect as part of the early intervention model, the study shows:
The early intervention model has also led to a substantial positive impact on the number of young people whose status is ‘Not Known’ at the beginning of Year 12.
Our recommendations for the sector include:
“An early NEET intervention model is, in my view, less a service that is ‘good to have’, but it is increasingly becoming a necessity.”
In this blog, Sarah Vaughan, our Senior Operations Manager, and lead for the Sefton service, reflects on the best practice that has developed since it began in 2019, and what the future looks like as demand grows.
Research on Elective Home Education to be published
Our research into careers provision for home educated young people is due to be published in peer-reviewed journal, British Journal of Guidance & Counselling.
“Setting new benchmarks for the provision of careers support for home educating families: findings from action research” will feature in a special edition titled?Praxis in Careers Guidance and Counselling, published by Taylor and Francis.
In 2016, an estimated 37,500 young people were being home educated (ADSC, 2016). By 2018, this had risen to 58,000, and then further to an estimated 115,542 young people during the 2020/21 academic year (ADSC, 2021).
Our research explores the reasons for withdrawing from school and the subsequent access that these young people have to Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG).
In the article, Gary Mundy Mundy (Director of Research), Karen Parry (Chief Operating Officer) and Sarah Vaughan (Senior Operations Manager) present findings from action research with home educating young people, parents/carers, staff from Career Connect, staff from schools and colleges, and staff from six local authorities.
They conclude that a growing number of families opt for home education as a short-term solution to broader challenges, while often lacking awareness of the long-term consequences.
Up until the age of 16, professional CEIAG is almost entirely provided through schools, meaning that home educated young people can miss out on valuable careers guidance and planning for post-16 pathways.
The research notes that this near absence of professional careers support exacerbates other challenges of being outside of mainstream school and poses a major risk to the long-term life outcomes for those young people.
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Get Connected helping schools achieve Gatsby benchmarks
We are proud to have launched Get Connected –?a single digital platform to help schools deliver, monitor and evidence their careers programme.?
Get Connected brings together interactive student career activities, reporting, and tracking together in one easy-to-use platform for pupils and staff.?
Chloe Elliott and Paul Williams explain more:
Mapped onto each Gatsby benchmark, Get Connected is designed by our expert careers advisers, following 10 years of best practice in schools and colleges.?Fully integrable with MIS systems and Compass Plus, schools can access individual, class, year group, and whole school insights to help inform their careers programme planning for maximum impact.
For a full demo or more information, contact: [email protected]
Celebrating National Careers Week and International Women’s Day
With National Careers Week and International Women’s Day in the same week, we’ve been celebrating the achievements and impact of women across our charity – and sharing insights into the variety of roles available in Careers.
Steff Edwards, Service Manager in our Achieve team (Criminal Justice) tells us how she changed her plans for a career in corporate law to one in the careers sector, where she helps people on probation move on to EET and pathways away from offending. Steff also gives her take on how employers can help women on probation into sustainable employment.
Careers Adviser Amnah Vicars talks about her passion for helping young people in some of Liverpool’s most deprived wards overcome barriers, and what she has gained from mentoring fellow female colleagues.
As the week continues, visit our website for profiles of our Chief Operating Officer Karen Parry , Joanne Madden (who works across our Training and Education teams) and Carmel Skidmore, Senior Operations Manager for our Education Team.
Achieve team takes home three prizes at national CFO3 awards
Career Connect’s Achieve team won three of the four awards they were nominated for at the national HMPPS CFO celebration event in Birmingham.
Achieve, our team specialising in careers, information and guidance services within the criminal justice sector, has delivered different rounds of the HMPPS CFO contract since 2010. In this time, they have worked with?thousands of?hard-to-reach participants with complex needs and barriers to employment.
At the CFO celebration event, Achieve won:
?????????????????? Veteran’s award (for the Discovery project at HMP Risley)
?????????????????? Creative arts award (for the Music Minds course)
?????????????????? Neurodiversity award – individual award for Lisa Duckworth, Case Manager
The CFO Discovery project at HMP Risley is a 27-week bespoke programme designed to help armed services veterans and other hard-to-reach prisoners access support, both in custody and in the community, as they prepare for release.
Music Minds is a week-long course in music development production and performance at HMP Wymott, offered to offenders with complex needs and personality disorders. Participants had access to a range of activities including music production, lyric writing, performance and research and development of musical scores to produce their own music, supported by music development and instrument workshops. Full story in our CFO3 newsletter.
Case Manager Lisa Duckworth won the Neurodiversity award for her work supporting offenders with additional needs and helping them communicate these to training providers and employers. Find out more about Lisa's impact here.
Achieve was also nominated for the Women’s award for the Coaching Inside and Out programme at HMP Styal. This programme helps hard-to-reach and vulnerable women in custody to develop resilience and life skills.???
Working together for digital inclusion
We recently took delivery of the latest batch of laptops from Tameside Community Computers CIC – all of which have been allocated to young people on Career Connect programmes across the Northwest.
Career Connect has been partnering with?Tameside Community Computers CIC?since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Impressed by the positive impact, Careers Adviser Andy Cannell started to collect old unwanted laptops from across the Northwest and became a Volunteer Fundraising Director for Tameside Community Computers CIC.
The collaboration has grown over time, and to date, Career Connect itself has donated more than 70 old staff laptops for refurbishment and redistribution.
More news from around our charity
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SEND Coach at Career Connect - Liverpool
1 年I will get sharing with my contacts ??????amazing thank you ??
Connecting HR, H&S, L&D and managers with Health and Wellbeing Solutions for the Workplace ??
1 年Brilliant! Congrats Career Connect