Grants of up to £500,000 are available to strengthen evidence on what support helps young people aged 16-24 who face significant barriers to work develop essential employment skills and progress into good jobs. The Foundation is seeking applications that initiate or develop partnerships between stakeholders, including employers, educators, third sector providers and local and regional government, in order to sustain support for young people.
Projects must focus on young people living in the UK, either across the full 16-24 age range or a narrower group within it, such as 16-19 year olds. Proposals should have a clear focus on those facing barriers to employment, which may include young people with low or no academic qualifications, persistent absence or exclusion from school, special educational needs and disabilities, mental health difficulties, experience of the care system, young parenthood, being a young carer, belonging to a Gypsy, Roma or Traveller community or living in areas with higher youth unemployment.
The Foundation will accept bids from partnerships already established between frontline delivery organisations and independent evaluators. It also expects the support to encourage new collaborations involving employers, educators, charities, researchers and local government.
Eligible costs include work to evaluate UK-based provision, improve mechanisms for sharing learning and advance approaches to measuring essential employment skills, with the intention of informing wider scaling-up of effective practice.