Portfolio

City Year brings together young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time service giving them the skills and opportunities to change the world. Young people, known as “corps members”, serving with City Year spend ten months working in schools

Big Brothers Big Sisters Germany is an independent and charitable organisation providing mentoring programmes for children and young people. Big Brothers Big Sisters started operations in 2007 in the Southern German region Rhein-Neckar. It has now expanded and is operating in six regions: Frankfurt, Essen, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Munich.

Community Links is an innovative inner city charity running community-based projects in east London. Founded in 1977, it now helps over 50,000 vulnerable children, young people and adults every year, with most of their work delivered in Newham, one of the poorest boroughs in Europe.

The Trust was established in 2007. It grew out of the outstandingly successful Every Child a Reader project , which showed that with the right intervention it is possible to tackle the literacy difficulties which blight many children’s lives This three-year £10m scheme, now being rolled out nationally, was funded by a partnership of businesses and charitable trusts with matched funding from government.

Every year, Fairbridge works with over 3,000 young people who are not in education, employment or training, or at very high risk of dropping out of schools. These young people could have a range of problems, including substance misuse or a history of offending. It works to help stabilise these young people, and build their skills and confidence so that they can re-enter education or employment. Over 70% of participants achieve a positive outcome, such as a qualification or moving on to employment

HHM was created in 2000 by the Hamburg business community which wanted to ensure a more successful school–work transition of students that graduate from the Hauptschule (basic education school). The HHM is the bridge-builder in the school-work transition, coordinating the efforts of 90+ Hauptschulen, the local job agency and the business community.

At each local centre IntoUniversity offers an innovative programme that supports young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to attain either a university place or another chosen aspiration.

Leap Confronting Conflict is a national voluntary youth organisation providing opportunities for young people and adults to explore creative approaches to conflicts in their lives. Each year about 2,400 young people and 500 adults participate directly in Leap’s programmes. Around 3,000 more young people are reached through network organisations and the professionals Leap has trained.

The NSPCC's purpose is to end cruelty to children. NSPCC seeks to achieve cultural, social and political change – influencing legislation, policy, practice, attitudes and behaviours for the benefit of children and young people. Therapeutic intervention is a highly skilled process of working with children who have been abused and helping them to discuss it in a structured way, finding ways to help them deal with the trauma. This might involve play, painting, role-play, and talking though this last element is often the last thing that any abused child will want to do. The process is time-consuming, costly, and challenging but it works, with results that can be measured. PEF's donation is helping fund six centres across the UK, and is also funding vital research in this area for the NSPCC

The Place2Be works inside schools to improve the emotional wellbeing of children, their families and the whole school community. The help given to primary school children and their parents tackle problems early and improve the children's self esteem and coping skills.

The Place2Be helps children who have worries on their mind and who can't take on learning, or form healthy relationships, who come to school and sometimes display angry behaviour, or withdrawn children who have experienced a breakdown in the family life, or bereavement.

JobAct is aimed at young adults aged below 25 who have left school without a diploma or were not able to get an apprenticeship position. The goal of the project is to place participants in adequate apprenticeship positions through the use of theatrical pedagogy. JobAct is twice as successful as a regular job/apprenticeship placement programme, placing an average of 60% of the participants while other programmes for this target group only place 30% of the participants. After just six months of operations JobAct was recognized as best Youth-Job Program 2006 by the Federal Job Agency.

SchlaU provides young unaccompanied refugees aged 16-20 with an opportunity for a school education adapted to their special needs, e.g. foreign language and culture, traumatic experiences, no family support. The aim of the project is that students graduate from school with a German school diploma and start an apprenticeship in a non-subsidised business environment. SchlaU has developed a set of teaching tools and pedagogical interventaion that allow it to graduate students - some of whom have never attended school before - within a period of one to three years. Of the 103 students that have graduated from SchlaU since its opening in 04/05, some 96% graduated with a school diploma. Of these, over 60% have either completed an apprenticeship programme or working towards an additional school diploma.

School-Home Support (SHS) helps vulnerable and disaffected children by providing a link between school and home, and addressing issues that might be preventing children from benefiting from their schooling. These children are typically at significant risk of truancy or being excluded from school, which in turn increases the risk that they will not be in education, employment or training later on.

Skill Force works in schools to deliver skills-based courses in years 10 and 11, to young people who are low achievers, and are at high risk of dropping out and then remaining out of education, employment and training. Courses combine classroom learning with outdoor activities, and are delivered largely by ex-Armed Forces personnel.

Tomorrow’s People’s Working It Out programme helps young people who are not in education, employment or training, to build their confidence and skills. These young people have typically come from poor homes and been excluded from school. Young people progress through a series of engaging and challenging activities, and supported to think about and pursue their next step. Some 86% of leavers go into employment or training, and follow-up monitoring suggests that over half are still in employment a year later.

Around 95% of participants on Studio+ are either not in education, employment or training (NEET) when they start the course, or are at risk of becoming NEET.Vital Regeneration's objective in developing Studio+ is to provide a bridge for young people who have not achieved qualifications, to enable them to engage with ongoing training and employment opportunities. This programme builds the literacy and numeracy skills of NEET young people and effectively reconnects them to mainstream education or work. Studio+ provides these young people a chance to demonstrate what they're innately capable of. It provides a unique training programme (delivered in 30 hour modules) offering the opportunity to achieve creative media accreditations, while developing literacy and numeracy skills and prepare them for national qualifications. So far 50% of participants of Studio+ have moved on to full time employment or trainee placements and 38% to further education.

Volunteer Reading Help aim to create a nation of confident children, literate for life. Children are inspired to become confident and literate for life through the sustained support of trained reading helpers.

The Volunteer Reading Help pupil survey indicates that 60% of children show 'good' or 'excellent' improvement in reading performance - this will help the children achieve in school, gain qualifications and progress into work.

After attending Women For Women's training and education courses in Kosovo, women are not only rebuilding their lives after war, but they are gently smashing the conservative boundaries that have limited their potential. Many men are welcoming the changes thanks to the inclusive approach of WFW, which works worldwide to support women in countries scarred by war and those living in war zones.