Photo courtesy of Youth Futures Foundation
The hurdles to young people finding work are significant. At the end of 2024, there were 987,000 young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) in the UK — an 11-year high.
Contributing factors include the lingering economic and societal effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and insufficient targeted support. Many of those who do find work then face job insecurity and low-quality opportunities.
Since July 2025, Social Finance has been the learning partner for this programme
We’re so pleased to be working with Social Finance on our flagship place-based programme, Connected Futures. This programme helps partnerships across the country to develop and foster localised solutions that break down barriers and improve access to employment for young people.
Together we can help young people receive the right employment support from the right place at the right time to help them into the right jobs for them.
Louise Rands, Head of Connected Futures, Youth Futures Foundation
At Social Finance we understand the barriers facing the most ‘invisible’ young people, including those excluded from schools, care leavers, and those with mental health challenges and neurodiversity.
As the learning partner for Connected Futures, we bring considerable experience and expertise from across our portfolio of work, particularly in the following areas:
Routes to Scale – the tool we developed to define success and the means to achieve it, underpins all our work.
And we have developed other bespoke tools to help partnerships examine their system change journeys.
As the learning partner for the Changing Future’s programme, we supported cross-sector partnerships to understand system change.
We have worked in Bristol, and continue to do so in Bury, to tackle the Special Educational Needs & Disabilities (SEND) crisis.
We were the learning partner for The Henry Smith Charity’s grant programme around advocacy services for people with learning disabilities.
We know that to change to hearts and minds, young people’s voices and experiences need to be amplified.
Through IPS Grow we have supported scaling up the Integrated Placement and Support model, which has helped thousands of young people to find and sustain jobs.
And we have a growing portfolio of work to transform employment and skills for everyone to achieve their full potential – including in Cheshire and Merseyside as part of the Get Britain Working agenda.
Bringing partnerships, researchers and young people together in regular networks, to promote nationwide peer-learning and collaboration.
Capturing and disseminating key insights and best practices emerging from the programme, ensuring that valuable knowledge is shared widely to inform future initiatives.
Supporting partnerships to develop the required skills and knowledge to deliver effective programmes.
Using the evidence generated by Connected Futures to help Youth Futures Foundation influence change that supports young people’s employment outcomes.
Making connections across partnerships, researchers and evaluators, to draw out learnings from the initiative.
To find out more please get in touch with our Employment and Skills lead Ankita.Saxena@socialfinance.org.uk
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