In 2009, The Who Cares? Trust helped UK care leavers back into the workplace. The project, called Building Futures, ran in partnership with Business in the Community. Young people took part in an intensive three-day course to build confidence and prepare for the workplace before embarking on a fortnight’s placement.
Here the frontline staff who supported some of the Building Futures participants share their experience:
Work experience for care leavers is an attractive offer but don’t rush in. If a young person isn’t emotionally ready, a placement could do more harm than good.
“Not all young people are ready for two weeks’ experience in a corporate, professional environment. Give serious consideration to who would have their confidence boosted rather than destroyed. There is a danger that for some young people that kind of placement would be a step too far, too soon.”
Louise Spencer, Personal Adviser, Wolverhampton Leaving Care
“During the training, one young person was disruptive – turning up late, leaving unannounced for a smoke. If someone’s behaving like that during morale-building exercises, you have to ask how he’s going to perform in an office. We could foresee problems and pulled him from the placement.
An employer will have greater expectations and that might trigger confrontation from the young person. The whole thing could have degenerated quickly from a positive experience into something that damaged his self-esteem.”
Lynn Owens, Personal Adviser, Wrexham Leaving Care Team
They may be willing, but are they ready and able? Getting even the keenest young people to a point where they are ready for work takes time and effort. Establish a training programme to build the young person’s confidence and pave the way for a successful placement.
“These young people have been out of work for a long time. Going straight back into a working environment can be tough – that’s where the training really helps. Jamie really flourished, it picked him up tremendously. He went from someone whose shoulders were down, whose routine was only ever broken up by friends coming around getting up to mischief, to someone who had a big smile on his face, had real confidence, and said, “I want to do something with my life.””
Michael Shanley, senior young person adviser, Sheffield
“Three days training before the placement were crucial. The young people were taught interview techniques and took part in confidence building exercises. It helped make the whole programme a success. I would advise using an outside agency for this work. We’re the ones who are always on at them about getting up in the morning, dressing appropriately, getting applications forms and so on. If we had run the course there would have been a danger the young people would switch off.”
Louise Spencer, Personal Adviser, Wolverhampton Leaving Care
Successful training prepares young people for work but also recognises their lifestyle. Care leavers can lead chaotic lives; an awareness of their needs and a willingness to accommodate these can go a long way.
“Care leavers are living alone, managing a house, and they’re only 18 or 19. They’ve been out of work a long time and are eager to change things, but they might not be ready to drop straight in to a 9-5 job.
We need to help them not make them feel they’re being judged or punished. They’ve signed up and are showing willing. If they’re to be late one morning, maybe it’s a sign they’re finding it tough, not that they don’t care.
Young people aren’t going to get that kind of slack in the workplace, but if you can get them on the right track and boost their self-esteem you’re going to get better results.”
Michael Shanley, senior young person adviser, Sheffield
“We had to get care leavers excited about work experience by talking about the benefits, the experience, the enhanced CVs. We had to get around their initial reaction: “what? You want me to work for two weeks for nothing?”It’s a tough one. You have to be honest. While they’re always going to be better off in employment, it’s not necessarily by a lot. It’s difficult to motivate someone when working a 37-hour week means they’ll take home £30 more than they would have on benefits.
We have to understand these young people have more responsibilities and more barriers than most their age. Any scheme has to recognise this fact.”
Louise Spencer, Personal Adviser, Wolverhampton Leaving Care
A successful placement requires full time support from front line staff. Heavy caseloads, or unpredictable work levels, will limit your ability to get the most from these schemes. A full time member of staff will make all the difference.
“Providing meaningful work experience brings a lot of extra work for front line staff. If we’re too busy and aren’t able to provide the right level of support, those young people simply won’t get as much from the placement as they should.
A lot of the time the young person will forget about an appointment, have a lie in, or not bother attending. If there’s anything at all that isn’t convenient to the young person it will be used as a reason for not attending.
A staff member focussing entirely on this kind of project will remove those barriers and those reasons for failing to attend. They will encourage and cajole the young person to get up and take part. They’ll knock on doors, get the young person up, go with them to the training and take them to the work placement. They will buy the young person a bacon buttie on the way in, rather than just making a phone call.”
Lynn Owens, Personal Adviser, Wrexham Leaving Care Team
“I was able to provide all the support I could because I had a quiet caseload. If this project had happened another time, I might not have been able to put in this amount of time and effort.The support worker needs time to dedicate to the project – and it takes a lot of time. It’s no good offering this kind of experience if you can’t be there for the young person.
We tried to set up some more work experience but the young people decided it wasn’t for them. At that time, I was snowed under with other work and couldn’t give the time to the young people. I feel that if I’d been able to we possibly could have made things work”
Louise Spencer, Personal Adviser, Wolverhampton Leaving Care
Make care leavers ready for employers, don’t expect employers to be ready for care leavers. Competition for jobs is high and future employers won’t know the young person’s history. Care leavers require specific, specialised support, but that’s your job not the employers.
“Our role is to get young people ready for work and then they’re out there in the real world – that’s the point of the pre-placement training.
We can’t help them every step of the way. They’re going to have to go it alone sooner or later, and part of getting ready for that is working with the real world expectations of employers.
To give the greatest benefit to the young person, it’s better that the employer treats them just like any other young person. It’s our job to worry about the specifics of them being care leavers.”
Lynn Owens, Personal Adviser, Wrexham Leaving Care Team
“The pre-placement training was great because while they were flexible and recognised the young person’s needs, they prepared Jamie for the reality of working with an employer. They told him how it would be and how he would be expected to behave. By the time he got into an office, he was ready. He worked hard, did what he could to impress and quickly made friends. Most importantly, no one at his workplace knew about his care background.This was fantastic. It made Jamie realise he is employable and can succeed. He was being judged on his performance and not on his background.
Before this placement, Jamie had always carried a belief that no one would touch him. “I’ve been in care, been a bad lad and got convictions, who’s going to employ me?”
After the scheme his confidence was way high. As a direct experience of his work experience he’d gone from long term unemployed and low self esteem to someone with a job, with real self belief and focus.”
Michael Shanley, senior young person adviser, Sheffield
Where are you sending your care leavers? Attractive as it might be to accept the advances of a willing employer, make sure they’re right. Are they offering meaningful work, will they offer adequate support?
“One of the great things about this scheme is that the employers treated young people like employees. They weren’t made to feel like work experience kids. They were part of the workforce and it made a huge difference.
Each of the employers that took part had been vetted to make sure they would offer suitable, meaningful employment. It’s really tempting – when you’ve got targets and deadlines – to partner with any employer that offers a place, but that can be really dangerous.”
Louise Spencer, Personal Adviser, Wolverhampton Leaving Care
“If employers are going to take on these young people they need to do so responsibly. If they end up offering our care leavers jobs, they have to be proper jobs with proper contracts that won’t leave the young people exposed to greater harm.One of the young people was offered a zero hours contract – she jumped at the chance. She’d gone through the work experience, done really well, and her confidence was sky high. So the offer of a job was the icing on the cake. The thing is no one explained what a zero hours contract was.
She signed off benefits and took the contract. What she didn’t appreciate was that she technically employed, but had no guaranteed hours. What lesson does that teach someone trying to get into work? From her point of view, she was better off doing nothing.”
Lynn Owens, Personal Adviser, Wrexham Leaving Care Team
A friendly face – during a cigarette break, on the bus ride home or in the canteen – can go a long way toward making a daunting placement something manageable and fun. Sharing stresses, problems and positive experiences with a peer is invaluable.
“The two young people we worked with were friends. This really helped make it successful because they could share their experiences. They offered each other support, talked about what they were doing. In effect, they became each other’s peer mentors.
This happened by chance, but it’s definitely something we would build in to future schemes.
I think there’s a danger that we make care leavers overly reliant on PAs or leaving care workers. It’s a really good lifeskill to learn to turn to your friends for support.”
Louise Spencer, Personal Adviser, Wolverhampton Leaving Care
“Jamie met a number of other young people at the training. It helped to meet others going through the same scheme, with similar experiences. Once the placement was over they were scheduled to meet up to be presented with certificates. They were full of pride and wanted to share their positive stories with their peers.Knowing this meeting was going to happen helped motivate Jamie through the placement. He wanted to come back having completed it successfully, he didn’t want to let himself down in front of these people.”
Michael Shanley, senior young person adviser, Sheffield
Work experience is just the start of a focused campaign to get care leavers back into employment. Capitalise on the young person’s efforts and their heightened self-esteem. CV clinics, interview training, and building on the lessons learnt from a placement will push a care leaver toward work. Failure to plan properly will see confidence dip, and encourage a drift back to unemployment.
“There’s a real danger that the work experience can feel disconnected from the young person’s day-to-day struggle to find employment. The only way to avoid that is to build in really solid support once the placement ends.We’re employing someone full time to manage this, so there will be proper continuation. She will work with the young people to identify any qualifications that are needed, running CV workshops, improving interview technique and taking forward any lessons and insights gained from the placement.
We have to use the work experience as a way of motivating the young people back into training, qualifications, apprenticeships.”
Louise Spencer, Personal Adviser, Wolverhampton Leaving Care
What would a parent do? Encourage your care leavers to get an early night, get their clothes ready the night before, be prepared to take them to the placement on the first morning, and be there for them if they’re finding things daunting.
“What would we do if these were our children? We’d give them lifts, we’d help them prepare the night before, we’d get their breakfast ready on the first morning, we’d talk about their nerves, their expectations, we’d get them up in the morning.”
Lynn Owens, Personal Adviser, Wrexham Leaving Care Team
“I was able to really be there for Jamie. I picked him up from home on the morning of his first day and we travelled in together. We’d arranged to meet up for lunch at the end of the first week to talk things over and check that everything was going well for him. Then, again, at the end of the two weeks we met for lunch and got a chance to close things off properly.It helped Jamie to know that we would be in touch regularly, as well as knowing that I was on the end of the phone whenever he might need me. Being supported by someone that knows him really well was the difference between him sticking with the programme and giving up.”
Michael Shanley, senior young person adviser, Sheffield
“There’s no doubt care leavers need extra support. They’re living alone, with no adult supervision. If their parents were there, they would have helped. So that becomes our job.I went with our young people to the training and the interview. I went with them to buy clothes for the interviews. I phoned up the night before - “make sure you’re clothes are ironed, get a clean shirt ready, have an early night” - and took them in on their first day.
It’s important that the young people see their personal adviser or leaving care worker putting some effort in. It’s good for the young person to see that we don’t automatically know how to get to the office. We have to use maps, get lost, get up early, get stressed. It demystifies things a little – it makes them realise we all get flustered. It’s perfectly normal and not a sign of failure.”
Louise Spencer, Personal Adviser, Wolverhampton Leaving Care
Money isn’t a dirty word. Incentivise the young people to become involved. Pay for travel, buy them appropriate clothing, reward commitment through additional funds. They are giving two weeks for free – a small incentive isn’t bribery, it’s recognition of hard work.
“We provided each young person with an additional £10 a week for the time they were involved in the scheme. This was to encourage them to participate and the recognise that they are engaging in something beneficial.”
Lynn Owens, Personal Adviser, Wrexham Leaving Care Team
“There’s resistance from young people to the idea that they are giving up two weeks for nothing. It might sound mercenary, but it’s a fact. It’s how they feel and it needs to be acknowledged.We decided to treat it as thought Jamie was – for the three weeks that the placement and the pre-placement training ran – engaged in a college course. We paid him the equivalent to the EMA, meaning he got £30 per week. He was doing something positive and we wanted to recognise the fact.
But there are other ways that money is useful, and can make all the difference between a successful placement and a failure.
Jamie didn’t have any clothes that were appropriate for working in an office. We spoke to the employer about that, and they provided £50 for him to buy trousers, shirt and shoes. This might not seem much but it made a huge difference. First, it meant that he didn’t feel out of place, he wasn’t self-conscious. it was important to him that he looked the part.”
Michael Shanley, senior young person adviser, Sheffield
The Who Cares? Trust,
Kemp House, 152-160 City Road,
London EC1V 2NP, UK,
Telephone: 020 7251 3117
Email: mailbox@thewhocarestrust.org.uk
The Who Cares? Trust is a registered charity (No. 1010518). A Company limited by guarantee. Registered in London (No. 2700693). VAT Reg. No. 577853091
Charity web design by Fat Beehive - Main photo by epidemya
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