Soft skills training

Design, fund and deliver outreach and recruitment activities that raise young people’s awareness, with targeted initiatives to reach under-represented group who are most likely to benefit.

This might include:

• Young people who have been out of work and/or learning for longer periods.
• Young people without Level 2 qualifications.
• Young people whose life experiences put them at higher risk of marginalisation in the labour market, for example those with experience of the care system and/or with SEN.

Discover more about risk factors associated with being NEET.

Also consider how best to identify and engage the most suitable partners and employers for a programme. Engagement should be timely and clear, in ways that raise awareness and facilitate recruitment, enrolment, and sustained engagement.

Effective programmes may use direct community outreach activities for engaging under-served groups, alongside up-to-date local and administrative data, working with public employment services, or advertising vacancies along with eligibility criteria.

Organisations that provide skills training to young people who face additional social and psychological barriers to employment may seek out expert staff to deliver this, for example tutors with professional experience and/or training to deliver a specialised programme. For example, one US intervention employed graduates with a social work credential and experience of working with adolescents. They received bespoke training and shadowed other outreach workers before taking on their own caseloads.  

Design, fund and deliver programmes that tailor content and approach to the needs of the young people involved. This may involve a needs assessment at recruitment or orientation.

For young people who face additional social, personal, and psychological barriers, such tailoring may be more complex.

Some programmes use specialist content packages that have been developed by organisations with relevant expertise, often using research and evaluation evidence. Where these are used, seek a close match with the overall programme aims and suitability for a specific cohort of young people.

Examples include:

• Preparing Adolescents for Young Adulthood – Massachusetts Department for Social Services
• Thinking for a Change – USA National Institute of Corrections, which aims to change thinking patterns that are associated with criminal behaviour and promote social and emotional learning

Organisations that work with young people who face additional social and psychological barriers to employment may seek out expert staff to deliver behavioural skills training, for example tutors with professional experience and/or training to deliver a specialised programme.  

Some programmes integrate soft skills development into sector- or role-specific vocational training, for example through group and project work, or through activities that ‘mirror’ those of the workplace.  

A strong relationship between policymakers, learning providers, employers, community organisations and local skills delivery organisations including Mayoral Strategic Authorities and Local Skills Improvement Plan areas supports effective youth employment support programmes.

Design, fund and deliver programmes that foster collaboration with education providers such as colleges to improve access to relevant teaching experience.

Support providers and delivery organisations to accurately and systematically capture and communicate data and milestones and track programme outcomes. This may include structured and standardised tracking forms, or developing realistic programme-specific performance frameworks.

For funders and commissioners – ensure recorded data, reporting and assessment captures a full range of appropriate and relevant youth employment and related outcomes to help rich understanding to ensure rich picture of what programmes do.

Encouraging reporting commonly recognised metrics allows evaluation to be easily comparable and included in the growing evidence base.

Design, fund and deliver programmes that:

• recruit staff as early as feasible, allowing time for training which can support initial engagement and familiarisation
• pay staff appropriately and seek where possible to employ staff on long-term or permanent contracts to ensure consistency and continuity of delivery
• hire staff with appropriate knowledge, experience and/or qualifications, and provide sufficient training, ongoing support, and opportunities for peer learning
• consider hiring staff with similar lived experiences to the target population and/or prior experience of working with young people in the local area
• ensure low staff-to-participant ratios where possible, to support capacity to engage with participants on resource-heavy tasks such as co-designed action plans
• clearly define roles and responsibilities and communicate intended outcomes and benchmarks to strengthen accountability