Youth unemployment: How the church is responding

Youth unemployment is a massive issue across Europe. The youth unemployment rate across the EU is at 18.6 per cent, and although it’s slightly better in the UK at 13.2 per cent, that still equates to considerable numbers of 15-24 year olds who are not in full-time work, education or training, placing it behind plenty of our European neighbours. With the imminent triggering of Article 50 propelling the UK into post-referendum limbo, and the anticipated uncertainty this will bring on the economy and employment - including prospective cuts to European funding for key youth employment programmes - what is the UK church already doing to tackle youth unemployment and how can the rest of us learn from them?

Churches and Christian organisations have been providing solutions to youth unemployment for years. From job clubs to personal coaching, launching social enterprises to developing apprenticeships, innovation is the name of the game. Here are some examples:

Coffee and woodwork

Manual trades can provide an unexpectedly lucrative career and one London charity is equipping young people with such skills needed to gain employment - through carpentry. Mike Biddulph used to be a youth worker for Christian youth work charity XLP, before starting London Reclaimed four years ago. He was inspired to start the carpentry business after he noticed that the young people he worked with were completing courses but were unable to gain employment due to a lack of experience. So combining Mike’s passion for youth work and his father’s background in carpentry, London Reclaimed was born. The charity makes and sells bespoke high end furniture using reclaimed wood sold to a range of clients.

Ann-Marie Yiannis, who works for the London Reclaimed group, says: “Lots of them were coming out with woodwork or carpentry qualifications but in reality, struggling to find employment due to lack of work experience. Or they had a certificate but no clue as to how to make a table.”

The charity trains young people for one year: six months in training and six months as a carpenter training the next cohort. All the young people are supported to go into employment. The programme ensures young people have sufficient work experience and references, with a focus on real life work experience over accredited qualifications. More than 20 trainees have taken part since it began, with approximately three new trainees starting every six months. All, with the exception of two, are in further employment or still working with London Reclaimed. Most of the young people come to the charity through word of mouth and some are referred by a local college.

Although not explicitly Christian, all the founders and trustees are Christian and it is from this ethos that the charity works. “We are not trying to talk about God. London Reclaimed is very much based on a ‘love in action’ ethos and ensuring real outcomes for young people. At the end of the year we want to see them in a completely different place from where they were a year ago. We don’t need to say we are Christians to do that,” Ann-Marie said. The small number of young people that London Reclaimed work with at a time is deliberate. Ann-Marie says: “It’s about real investment so by keeping it small we can invest in the whole person. We want to show that the whole person is loved; not just say nice things to you and give you a certificate.”

Earlier this year, London Reclaimed expanded into its new venture - the Lumberjack café in South London. The café opened in January and trains young people in a range of skills including customer service, food hygiene and coffee skills. The café displays the furniture made by the carpentry project - acting as a shop window. Lumberjack currently have a small number of paid trainees alongside other employees and are seeking to increase the number of trainees in the coming months. It follows the same model: six months as a trainee then six months as an employee resulting in a wage increase. Over time, trainees develop a range of skills, fully equipping them for the work place. All the young people come from a local housing resettlement programme, which provides transitional housing for young people. They also take referrals from other organisations. Ann-Marie says: “Having a job is essentially about being able to contribute to the world, you have purpose and it matters that you are there. And for people who don’t have the skills, particularly the soft skills like turning up on time, it’s important to create space for them to grow and learn.”

Personal barriers to employability

Gaining employment can be difficult at the best of times, but this is heightened if you are struggling with issues such as poor mental health. Founded in 1994, Southampton Action for Employment (SAFE), have been providing innovative solutions to support people with multiple needs into work, with a focus on mental health and wellbeing. Incorporating cognitive behavioural therapy, (a popular form of psychology) and vocational support, the ‘choices’ programme was developed after staff noticed that the majority of participants on previous courses presented with anxiety, depression and other mental health issues, limiting their ability to find and retain work.

Officially launched in 2008, the choices programme is currently delivered to three groups: young people in secondary school, young adults (16-24 year olds) and adults (25 years and older), and is now one of the charity’s primary areas of work. The programme gives young people the tools to think differently, overcome mental health issues and improve employability. It works mainly with young people facing multiple barriers including homelessness, substance misuse, living a life of crime and / or antisocial behaviour, which significantly inhibits their ability to engage with the labour market. This has achieved exceptionally positive long-term outcomes: three years after completion, 75 per cent of the young NEETS (not in education, employment or training) the charity worked with are in work and almost all of the young people have moved on both behaviourally and practically, according to evaluation conducted by the University of Southampton.

The programme is run in informal community settings and focuses on helping people to understand their strengths, overcome barriers, set goals effectively, learn to build relationships and ultimately, develop a healthy mindset in order to overcome self-limiting beliefs. The schools programme has also been successful in encouraging and challenging students to re-engage with their education and achieve their goals.

Nina Kelly, chief development officer at SAFE, says: “Changing the way they think enables young people to take control, giving them the self-confidence they need to change their behaviour and transform their lives in a positive way.” The charity trains existing staff to become facilitators in addition to delivering the service directly to interested parties. For more information visit: safe.org.uk.

Crafting hope

The north-east of England has the highest rates of youth unemployment in the country. Established four years ago, Handcrafted provides tailored training opportunities to disadvantaged, socially-excluded people in the Durham area. The charity focuses on four strands of work: woodwork - where individuals learn basic carpentry skills; gardening; enterprise - supporting individuals to start their own businesses; and housing renovations - including training in wiring and basic building work. They also offer supported housing, providing an address for homeless individuals to apply for jobs and benefits. What’s unique about this project is that residents are taught to make their own furniture for their bedrooms.

Handcrafted work with a range of people, including the homeless, ex-offenders and those struggling with alcohol or substance misuse. They come to the project through a number of means including self- referral and through local partners. Through their involvement with the charity, attendees eventually go onto employment, start their own business or become residents in the supported housing service.

The charity works with all ages but has a large number of young people in its care. Participants are encouraged to take up one of the training strands at whatever level they are comfortable with. The courses are offered on a daily basis and are run by experienced staff and volunteers. Support worker Seymour Jacklin says: “The training aims to build confidence and instil a can do attitude. This can also give them confidence in other aspects of their lives.”

The charity also sells some of the products made and offers services such as landscaping, painting and decorating to clients who are mainly from local churches. “Deprivation is very much part of the scenery here. Geographically speaking most of the surrounding villages were collieries and obviously when they closed down it left a massive gap in employment. For generations there have been very few prospects,” Seymour says. “Poverty has its own type of culture which tends to propagate from one generation to another. People don’t have high expectations of what they might be able to achieve and they don’t get given much opportunity to try things out which has repercussions throughout the community. In many of the local villages it would be rare for kids to see ordinary people working – including their parents – therefore they don’t have the expectation that they ever will. So the norm quickly becomes being on benefits, that is the sort of culture of poverty which has set in which we are hoping over time will change and shift. If nobody has ever said you can learn the skills you need to do the things you want to do in life, very often it can lead to low ambitions and expectations. But once you start to build confidence, tell that story and people start to believe it, then real change begins and people can see possibility; that there is hope for their future.” For more information visit: handcrafted.org.uk.

The apprentice

The Salmon Centre has been serving the community of Bermondsey, South London for more than 100 years. The Christian youth centre delivers a range of programmes to support young people. The centre has 500 young people pass through its doors every week from aged 6 to 24 and has a range of different programmes on offer designed to tackle youth unemployment.

The Salmon centre offers its own apprenticeships programme which takes on four young people to study for an apprenticeship in youth work lasting nine months. Most of the young people who take part in this programme are already known to the staff through regular attendance at the youth club and are typically not in work.

All trainees attend the Bible study every Monday morning, followed by a weekly team meeting and are involved in every single area of youth work. The charity also offers the Future and Hope Employment programme (FHE). This runs every three months and 40 young people have taken part since the programme began in November 2015. The programme is funded by the local authority as part of their strategy to support young people into employment and is targeted at NEET young people in the borough. Young people are referred to the programme by local job centres, the youth offenders’ team and other local youth agencies / charities. The charity also provide a number of other opportunities for young people to be involved beyond apprenticeships, including volunteering,

“The programme makes the young people become more proactive about next steps and we help them with that, whether it is help with an application or CV,” says Amy Glover who leads the centre’s youth employment work. “We had one young man, a carer who had good GCSEs, who came on the FHE programme and attended the centre so he could have time for himself. His parents were not present so he was the main carer for his younger brother. He tried to take his A levels but couldn’t due to caring responsibilities. Now that his brother is older and studying to be a plumber, he is trying to get his life back. He began volunteering with us, doing reception duty. Coming to the centre has not only given him space to be himself, it’s provided a place where he can dream again.” For more information visit salmoncentre.co.uk/preparing-work.

Kemi Bamgbose is PR manager for CAFOD and a freelance writer.