Catch22 Zine: 2023

Reform of youth employment

Since September 2021, and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, we have embarked on a mission to tackle youth unemployment and underemployment – by making it our Reform priority. In the last year, our employability programmes placed nearly 750 young people into work and many of those are still in work six months on. We’ve expanded many of our programmes, held several Employability Summits on diverse and inclusive workforces and held a roundtable series focussing on the topic of underemployment.

Catch22 is also a member of the Youth Employment Group, which now comprises more than 200 organisations working in and around the youth employment space. We rounded off our activity by hosting fringe events at the Conservative and Labour party conferences.

Our Patron, Princess Anne, awards Digital Edge participants

Participants on our Digital Edge programme – funded by Microsoft – which supports young people facing barriers to work into digital and tech careers, were presented with awards by HRH Princess Anne. The event was a celebration of the programme and the achievements of the young people who’ve participated over the course of last year.

Catch22’s Tara Ward wins prestigious award for campaigning work for victims

Beacon‘s Team Leader, Tara Ward, has campaigned tirelessly for support for victims’ bereaved families who have dealt with knife crime and youth violence. Last year she met with policy makers and outlined her case for change, as well as leading a visit to the Beacon Family Hub by the Secretary of State for Justice.

Tara won the prestigious Saskia Jones Award at the Criminal Justice Alliance awards. As well as her great work within the Beacon service and being an advocate for Catch22’s work externally, Tara successfully campaigned for a change to the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime.

Thanks to her work, now in the case of homicide, wider relations to victims will receive support rather than just immediate family.

“I lost my partner in 2018 to an unprovoked knife and gun attack. I felt I should honour his memory to change the system for so many other people.”

– Tara Ward

We believe that this victim-centered approach empowers and builds resilience in victims to help them cope and recover from the impact of crime. Our approach to supporting victims is underpinned by our wider portfolio of experience in delivering different public services, from child exploitation services supporting children and young people affected by county lines, to substance misuse and gangs services. This extensive experience provides us with a well-rounded understanding and perspective of the multi-faceted and complex nature of crime and its wider impacts.

Helping disadvantaged people thrive

Community Links’ Community Connectors programme has launched, helping people of all ages suffering from mental illness. The five year £3.9m programme aims to work with GPs and in the community to help more than 6,000 people!

Links Media College launch

Community Links launched Links Media College – a free, part-time fully accredited college for 16-19-year-olds. The College specialises in offering learning and training opportunities for students who, for whatever reason, don’t want to stay in a traditional academic environment.

The College, based in Newham, provides our students with a different option – the opportunity to carry on their learning in a smaller, highly supportive environment where the focus is on providing learning and training options to help students gain the skills, qualifications and experiences they need to achieve their goals in life. As well as helping students build skills in English and Maths, they can also gain a Level 2 certificate in Music Technology.

Thriving in the online world

Through funding by the Avast Foundation, we commissioned an extensive piece of research exploring how young people who are often marginalised – in particular those outside mainstream education – can be supported to thrive in the online world.

We advocate for practitioners to put the research into practice, in the hopes that they can understand how to ensure young people feel safe and comfortable.

Some of the top tips that were suggested in the research for engaging disadvantaged young people online included:

1. ensuring young people feel safe and comfortable,
2. ensuring accessibility and clarity of understanding for all,
3. ensuring young people feel completely in control,
4. establishing and maintaining trust, and
5. building confidence and feelings of belonging.

“Too often, young people are pushed towards programmes on ‘online safety’ and ‘digital skills’, which invariably have good content, but often struggle with poor engagement. We need to speak the language of young people. That means talking about what they care about, not what we think they should care about.”

– Kat Dixon, former Director of Partnerships

Inequity in safeguarding

For a recording of the Catch22Minutes podcast, Melissa Milner (MM), Director of External Affairs and Partnerships, spoke to Jahnine Davis (JD) and Daniel Morris (DM), Co-Directors of Listen Up Research. Jahnine and Daniel advocate for better experiences of minorities, marginalised children and young people, ensuring that they are not just seen and heard, but protected through research, practice and policy.

MM: Safeguarding is something that happens in schools, in prisons, and pretty much every local authority service. When safeguarding goes wrong, the consequences can be catastrophic. When it’s done well, it allows some of the most vulnerable in soeiety to live safely and to thrive. Everyone deserves that right, and yet there is inequity in safeguarding. Can you descibe the kind of inequity that you see?

JD: The reality is, when I think back to my experience of working directly with children and young people, I ask myself, “How far have we have come in terms of making progression and change?” Upon the conversations we’re having about inequity, there may be a focus now – and I guess I question where that focus has come from.

Following the murder of George Floyd in summer 2020, what we see is, where there is a core focus of an issue, or more recently where there has been quite a lens on racism, it allows us in some way to start asking ourselves, what that may mean when that form of racial bias plays out in the way in which we go about our safeguarding duties.

But also, we can look at safeguarding in relation to that wider intersection of how different experiences can collide, such as classism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia.

The point is, that we have bias and discrimination in our society, so in some way, it would be naïve to think that even with all the good intention behind safeguarding, that those various inequities don’t exist within our system. Of course they do!

We see that from local safeguarding practice reviews, we hear about it when hearing the experiences of children and young people and families. I guess the reason why inequity exists in safeguarding is simply because inequity exists within our society, on a personal level and structural level.

DM: When we think through an intersectional lens, it enables us to consider different groups’ experiences, for example, black young boys have an experience of high risk of exclusions and are more likely to be stopped and searched.

Therefore, their experiences are going to differ compared to their white counterparts and may also differ to black young girls. By sharing a light on the nuances that apply to these groups, it allows us to be curious enough to consider what are the needs for these young people and how we can engage them into our services, by ensuring they are reflecting the needs of young people.

This would require us to move away from this universal approach to service design, and think more deeply about when there is a ‘universal lens’, which groups reside in the centre point, and who is being excluded.

Safeguarding practices, especially, invite us to acknowledge and understand that all children are innately vulnerable. What adultification does is erase this.

Adultification refers to the reduction and overlooking of the innocence of children. This means that children are almost de-humanised in a sense, by being othered and shunned.  It allows a decrease in vulnerability towards young people, and an increase in responsibility of a child whereby their right to be worthy of protection by local authority becomes a second thought.

We believe that wellbeing and safeguarding professionals have a duty of care which seems to be in decline when adultification takes place.

Research shows us that black children are unfairly ‘adultified’ at higher rates than other white counterparts, across the UK and the US. We see this prominently play out in CCE (Child Criminal Exploitation) as well as young people who have been engaged in county lines.

There is this detachment that happens when you see young people who may be engaging in activities that are synonymous with pre-determined stereotypes. It encourages professionals to assume that they are guilty and complicit within their actions, rather than considering a more holistic approach, and asking; “Why is a 14, 13, 12-year-old child 17 miles from home with drugs in hand?”

The starting point to finding a solution to these inequities, lies within ourselves. We must actively acknowledge that discrimination and pre-determined bias towards groups exists within our systems, particularly in policy, such as in education and exclusion data. We must ask who they tend to impact more, and ask why that happens.

As safeguarding professionals, we believe that we cannot fulfil our duties effectively by looking at things at face value. Like our speakers from Listen Up, Catch22 encourages people to be curious about what else might be occurring here and exactly what these specific journeys from each young person entails, as well as how our roles and policies could potentially be impacting them from receiving the right care.

Internal reflection can allow a much bigger conversation to be had across safeguarding services, so that all children, regardless of race, class, circumstance or creed, can receive the right protection that they deserve.

Empowering care leavers

The National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum (NLCBF) has a large and active membership of 129 Local Authority leaving care teams. At the heart of the forum is the Young Person’s Benchmarking Forum (YPBMF), with the voice of care leavers shaping the direction of the forum and integral to the forum’s events and work.

“NLCBF is a national forum where they try and make changes across the country and have links to Government and try to make things as equal as possible whether they are from North, South, or anywhere.”

– Care Leaver

NLCBF’s recent cost of living report ‘Survival is Not Easy’ paints a stark picture of the crisis that care-experienced young people are currently facing. The report shows the crisis is impacting mental health, housing security, ability to purchase food and essentials and young people are facing increasing levels of debt and are at increased risk of exploitation.

Over 460 care experienced young people took part in the survey in the last two weeks of November 2022. 82% said they were struggling to afford food all or some of the time. 76% recognise the cost of living crisis has impacted their mental health, and 31% said they were at risk of homelessness, due to getting behind with rent.

For a care experienced young people on Universal Credit, £61.22 per week is simply unaffordable to live on and we are calling for an immediate commitment to make care experienced young people entitled to the over 25 Universal Credit rate as soon as they turn 18. This will benefit those in education, seeking work and in low paid  employment.

We recognise that there is a big difference between how children’s and adult’s services offer support. The threshold for adult services can be very high and if young people do not engage well, they can be seen as not wanting a service, but we are concerned they will fall into ‘the gap’. Too often, more focus is placed on the care plan of care leavers and not on the individual person, which is reflected in the expectation and stigma young people face.

This is why we believe that empowering young people to take control of their lives and identify their strengths and potential, is so important. We can help young people to achieve this by working alongside them to ensure their voices are heard and understood. This is massively important to personal development when turning 18 and beyond.

As professionals, it is important that we make sure that young people are helped and protected in this really important phase in their lives.

Professionals can also find supporting Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASCs) and young people more challenging due to a lack of understanding around their culture and the culture change they experience when adjusting to life in the UK. They can face many barriers including language, family, discrimination, physical environments, and knowledge that makes transitioning to adulthood harder for young people who may still be trying to assimilate into a new culture.

We must work together to focus on the incredibly fragile and stressful period of transitioning and be there to support them every step of the way.

Our young people are the next generation, we need to remind them of that and encourage them to succeed. As professionals let’s fill the gap, become trauma-informed and focus on supporting them.

– Toni McClelland, Digital Marketing and Events Officer at the National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum

New avenues at TikTok Creative Academy

Passion, creativity, and diversity were the hallmarks of the TikTok Creative Academy: Birmingham Pop-Up event. The event offered young creatives in Birmingham a chance to network, attend creative workshops, and connect with industry experts. Over 150 participants turned out for this free open drop-in day, making it a resounding success!

The Birmingham Pop-Up event was the second event in our touring series for the TikTok Creative Academy for 2023, with over 320 registrations and an incredible turnout from local young people looking to break into the creative industries.

DropShot, the hip venue that hosted the event, was the perfect place for young creatives to come together, have fun, and learn from industry experts and local artists.

The TikTok Creative Academy is a programme that is committed to boosting access to the creative industries for young people across the UK who are not in education, employment, or training to get closer to a creative job, allowing them to embark on their creative careers.

Andy Street, the Mayor of West Midlands, acknowledged the challenges faced by young people trying to break into the creative industry. He emphasised that the TikTok Creative Academy was designed to help break down the barriers and provide opportunities for young creatives in the Birmingham area, with the aim of helping up to 2500 young people facing unemployment by 2024.

“There is talent everywhere, but opportunities are not evenly spread.”

– Andy Street, Mayor of West Midlands

The day was filled with a variety of creative workshops designed to inspire and ignite the participants’ passions. DJing, podcasting, and songwriting were just a few of the workshops that were offered, led by experienced professionals such as DJ Martyn, Capital FM Breakfast presenter Dan Kelly, and singer-songwriter Tara Chinn. Participants were thrilled to have the opportunity to learn from these accomplished creatives and explore new avenues for their own artistic pursuits.

But the event wasn’t just about workshops and learning new skills. The speed mentoring sessions provided a unique opportunity for participants to connect with top UK creatives from various professions and industries. Speakers included filmmaker and social entrepreneur Daina Anderson Mpunzi, Artist Manager, Jess Monroe, Movement Director and Choreographer Steady Steadman, and Theatre Director and Poet, Odd Priest. These guests shared their invaluable experiences and journeys to success, inspiring participants to pursue their own creative dreams and passions.

More than ever it’s important to bridge the gap with our younger generations. If we want to see a change in the way that youth get access to the knowledge and networks of the creative industries, we must provide young people with a proper gateway into creative spaces. The TikTok Creative Academy is doing just that, providing young people with the resources, skills, and connections they need to pursue their creative passions and achieve success in the industry.

– Ilke Yilmaz, Events Coordinator

TikTok Creative Academy Top Tips

Network, network, network!

Participants had the opportunity to connect with industry professionals, and the speakers emphasised the importance of building relationships and keeping in touch with contacts. Networking can lead to potential partnerships, collaborations, and job opportunities, as well as expanding knowledge of the industry and staying updated on the latest trends and  developments.

Explore different paths to find your niche.

The workshops provided participants with the chance to learn about DJing, podcasting, and songwriting, and the panelists shared their own experiences of exploring different creative paths before finding their niche. The creative industry is diverse, and there are many different paths to success, so transferable skills are crucial.

Support and uplift fellow creatives.

The speakers emphasised the value of collaborating and working together, rather than seeing each other as competition. You are your only competiton. They encouraged participants to share their work and support each other’s projects, building a community of like-minded individuals.

How can young people thrive in a digital world?

As the world around us becomes increasingly digitised, it’s more important than ever for young people to develop strong digital skills. 82% of UK jobs already require digital skills, and it has been estimated that by 2030, 20% of the workforce in the UK will be significantly underskilled in their jobs.

The need for digital skills is not lost on young people: 88% realise that digital skills will be essential for their careers. However nearly 75% of young people do not feel they have the digital skills that they need to thrive. Learning At Work Institute research shows that fewer than half of British employers believe young people are leaving full-time education with sufficient digital skills. Catch22 and Nominet found that, in the eyes of young people, not all schools and workplaces are providing good enough digital skills training across the board.

The impact of this can already be recognised in the workplace, with 76% of firms believing this lack of digital skills will hit their profitability. There would be significant benefits to improving employees’ digital skills for work by providing them with relevant education and training. The computing skills that are taught in UK schools are usually limited to one lesson rather than integrated across the curriculum. To ensure that young people can thrive we must encourage them to pursue the digital skills that they are not picking up in education or in the workplace.

Not only will this prepare them for a successful career, but it will also give them the opportunity to create positive and lasting change in the world as they gain the required knowledge and confidence to thrive in the digital world. The Social Switch Project has successfully upskilled 109 young people that are now in digital careers and are still receiving career support post-programme. Our aim is for all the young people that we work with to arrive at positive destinations such as good digital jobs, education/ training, apprenticeships, self employment, increased skills, increased confidence, and increased awareness.

There are many ways that young people can acquire the digital skills for work that they need, from formal training programs to self-learning. Here are some useful tips:

• Take courses: Courses such as our free Digital Skills & Employability programmes are a great way to learn specific digital skills for work.
• Attend workshops/webinars: These help you to network and meet new people in the digital industry, whilst learning new digital skills for work.
• Learn from mentors/coaches: Receiving guidance from a mentor can help you gain a better understanding of which digital skills you need to develop for work. Participants of The Social Switch Project benefit from a work coach that supports them as an individual. The programme also features guest speakers in the digital industry which gives young people an opportunity to network with industry professionals and ask any relevant questions.
• Follow online tutorials/courses: Following tutorials can help you learn and practise different digital skills. Participants of The Social Switch Project benefit from access to online courses that allow them to upskill themselves for work.
• Consider an apprenticeship: An apprenticeship is a hands-on learning process that can help you gain digital skills while gaining work experience.
• Join communities: Joining online communities, forums, and discussion boards can help you gain a better understanding of digital skills through conversations. The Social Switch Project’s alumni gain access to events which allow them to network and learn from each other.

– Ellie Leacy, Digital Marketing Assistant

Green jobs for all

Between September and November 2022, there were 1,187,000 job vacancies in the UK – impacting businesses’ productivity and ability to grow, and potentially costing the UK economy up to £39 billion a year in GDP. This is exacerbated by skills shortages – particularly in the emerging green economy.

Activity to close the UK’s green skills gap has, so far, focused on skilled employment requiring medium and high-level qualifications. There has been less attention on entry-level green jobs, and even less on how those outside the labour market can be supported into these roles. This includes individuals with social barriers such as, few educational and professional qualifications, experience of the care system, mental and physical health problems, and criminal records.

Catch22 commissioned the Green Alliance to explore the accessibility of entry-level green jobs and training pathways for disadvantaged groups. The report concludes that while entry-level green jobs are available and there are some supported routes into them, for many outside the labour market they remain hard to access.

As the UK works towards net zero, alongside efforts to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, it is vital to look beyond the existing pipeline into green jobs. Without doing so, not only could we fail to achieve those targets, but there’s also a risk of perpetuating poor outcomes for individuals.

“At present, too many routes into the green sector tend to exclude those facing challenges from health, education, background or otherwise. Awareness, training and securing employment emerged as the three key areas where policies need to be implemented to support those outside the existing labour marketing, which would otherwise be a missed opportunity.

– Carly McGoldrick, Assistant Director of Partnerships

At Catch22 we have also designed the Green Jobs for All Forum as a platform for transforming conversation into action. We’re bringing together job seekers, employers, think tanks, policy makers and educators to explore how green jobs can be made accessible to all. We completed our Green Jobs For All Forum webinar series, where we explored, with employers, job seekers, researchers and policy makers, the market for entry level green jobs and how people can access them.

Our first forum event brought together speakers including Sam Alvis, Head of Economy at the Green Alliance, Eduardo Rodriguez Montemayor from PwC Strategy& who presented the Green Jobs Barometer and Fergus Hynd from National Grid, who talked about their Grid for Good programme. We also heard from two young Climate Action Researchers, currently working with Catch22 to explore what the barriers are to young people embarking on a career in green jobs. There was a consensus that ‘green jobs’ encapsulates a broad range of roles, and that although many people are motivated to work in the green sector, these roles need to be made more attractive, and more defined entry-level pathways into jobs are needed.

Sharing insight and experience with victim services

This year, Hertfordshire Beacon Victim Care delivered the first Hertfordshire annual Victims’ Awareness Conference. With over 100 guests, the day comprised talks from partners, stakeholders and people with lived experience, all of whom shared one thing in common: a determination to ensure that the journey a victim takes through the criminal justice system is one which makes them feel understood, empowered and respected.

Beacon Victim Care is Hertfordshire’s Victim Care service and has been delivered by Catch22 since 2018. Beacon’s motto, “No one victim left behind”, is its guiding principle; the service works to ensure that, regardless of when the crime was committed and whether it was reported to the police, every victim has the right to access support and advocacy when navigating the system.

The service works with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) to understand the needs of the local community and deliver the best possible care for victims.

“Thank you for one of the best conferences on the needs of the victim I have ever attended. It will help me to better support victims in my role.

– Attendee

Hearing from the experts

First off, we heard from Kevin McGetrick, Head of Commissioning and Victim Services at the OPCC for Hertfordshire. Kevin informed us of the importance of engaging with those underrepresented, or “hidden”, cohorts of victims who are unlikely to come forward for support, asking us to consider how we can ensure we’re reaching all victims of crime, and not just the low hanging fruit.

We also heard from Charlotte Calkin at the Restorative Engagement Forum. Charlotte spoke on the impact that restorative justice can have on both victims and perpetrators, if appropriate, as well as dispelling the myths that surround restorative justice and why we must work as a collective to educate the sector on the wide-ranging forms that restorative justice and take, and their respective benefits.

We then heard from Mark Brooks OBE, the founder of ManKind charity, who support and advocate for male victims of domestic abuse. Mark described the urgent need to raise awareness on the increasingly-common issue of domestic abuse/domestic violence against males.

Finally, we heard talks from Jade and Kris, both of whom are survivors of serious crime and were kind enough to share their stories with us. Both Jade and Kris perfectly encapsulated the experience of being a victim navigating the criminal justice system, and shone a light on the complex, and often unsupportive, channels a victim must travel through to seek justice.

They eloquently expressed the need for a system which treats individuals as individuals, and not simply case files, and described how some of the best support they received, including that from Hertfordshire Beacon, came from those who understood that there is no one-size-fits-all model for helping victims.

Hearing from Jade and Kris prompted attendees at the conference and working in the victims space to remember that, at the centre of everything we do, there are real people who have suffered real trauma, and this should be the basis upon which we build our services: an important lesson that we continually remind ourselves of as we strive to deliver even better support for victims.

Beacon Victim Care takes an “ecosystem” approach, working collaboratively with local organisations to ensure that victims receive the most appropriate and specialist support that will help them recover from the impact of crime.

Editor of British Vogue visits Include London

Catch22 had the privilege of welcoming Edward Enninful OBE, Editor in Chief of British Vogue, and Sinéad Burke, CEO of Tilting the Lens to Include London.

May’s issue of Vogue, “Reframing Fashion”, focused on disability and inclusion. This issue was a portfolio edition highlighting disability justice, accessibility, equity, intersectionality and pride, with Sinéad Burke as Consultant Editor. The magazine featured and focused on 19 disabled people in total from fashion, sport and the arts.

Include London is an Alternative Provision school that supports learners for whom mainstream education is not the right fit. Students may have additional to complex needs including social, emotional and mental health needs (SEMH) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A key focus of Include London’s delivery is on building trusting relationships that enable staff to quickly identify students’ barriers to learning and support our learners to reach their full potential. The school is located across two sites in West London, close by to where Edward grew up.

Edward and Sinéad hosted an enlightening conversation with our students, in which they discussed the importance of diversity, both in fashion and beyond. Edward and Sinéad also heard from our students on how they embrace their differences, and in return offered some insight into their journey to where they are now and how they overcame barriers to success.

“It is brilliant for our students to have heard directly from such inspirational leaders as Edward and Sinéad . The visit highlighted to our students just how possible it is for them to achieve their greatest ambitions, whether in fashion or otherwise, and that disabilities and differences are to be recognised and celebrated.”

– Jo Shuter, Headteacher of Include London

It was an enlightening conversation which demonstrated to our students their power in becoming the leaders of a more inclusive and accessible world.

Edward and Sinéad paint a much needed picture that we are not just one thing, our identities and experiences grow and mould into each other. Especially for our young people, they call attention to the importance of our voices, allowing our students to remember that we are not limited by what makes us different, it is actually our strength.

– Miranda Shanks, Policy and Communications Manager (Justice and Education)

Staff Awards winners

The Outstanding Contribution to Reform and Innovation Award: Sarah Parker (YPF&C)

Sarah has represented Catch22 at a vast array of national forums and via all forms of media, including national TV and radio always displaying the utmost professionalism, with her compassion and enthusiasm to protect children shining through.

The Andrew Shurrock Award for Care and Compassion: Matilda Simpson (YPF&C)

As a member of staff, Matilda consistently demonstrates a deep commitment to the children that we support and always goes above and beyond to ensure that their needs are met.

The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Award: Ashleigh Hackett (Justice & Education)

Ashleigh has shown great resolve and compassion in closing the equality gap for LGBTQ+ communities and is one of our PRIDE
champions.

The John Andrews Award for The Unsung Hero: Shane Convey (Corporate Services)

Shane demonstrates compassion for all our service users, clients, and candidates. He is incredibly knowledgeable of the public sector funding landscape and regularly shares his expertise with the wider team and operational specialists.

The Most Inspirational Leader Award: Samantha Crandle (Employability & Skills)

Sam has represented Catch22 at commissioner and partnership meetings, building valued relations and exploring how we can
continue to grow the footprint of the organisation.

The Rising Star Award: Adam Charlton (Employability & Skills)
Adam has made an immeasurable difference to their existence of loneliness and social exclusion. Even the Head of Department at New College Durham said “Adam has been great, the experience he has given our young people has been life changing.”

The Team of the Year Award: The Communications Team (Corporate Services)
The team are very talented, highly skilled and ridiculously productive. Alongside being very humble and understated they have produced some of the best communications work we have seen in the organisation over the last 21 years.

The Working in Partnership Award: Michael Chaplin (YPF&C)
Mike collaborated with a number of local partners working successfully to deliver a project in the Gunton Estate, Lowestoft which reduced levels of anti-social behaviour in the area.