Inspire! invited to share NEET experience with national audience
Inspire! has been invited to share its experience of running a cross-borough programme to address the NEET challenge (not in education, employment or training) with a wider audience.
Dorothy (Dot) Hodgson, Inspire!’s Contracts and Partnerships Manager, will address the 8th National NEET Conference in Birmingham in February. She will report on the successes and challenges of our ESF 16-19 NEET Programme. Dot’s role is to lead and manage the consortium of seven delivery agencies working in six boroughs to counter the NEET problem. The programme has been hailed by the Skills Funding Agency as a ‘star project’ because of its consistent performance in exceeding its targets and engaging young women.
Since delivery of the project began in March 2012, the consortium has engaged with 383 young people. Candidates undertake a series of non-accredited learning before being supported into EET. To date, 164 candidates have moved though into EET, against a target of 165 and 103 have remained in EET for 13 weeks against a target of 89.
A key aspect of the ESF 16-19 NEET Programme has been to engage young women. Dot says: “This has posed some particular challenges both in recruiting young women to the scheme and to overcome barriers, perceived and real, in the types of career choices available to them. We have really had to put our heads together and work collaboratively within the consortium to come up with ideas address these issues. I look forward to sharing our thoughts and success with the conference audience and to hear from them about the different approaches in other parts of the country to help get young people back into education, employment or training.”
Dot is getting used to disseminating information on the consortium’s achievements to the wider world. In September, she presented the project to a delegation from the European Union.
