What Works
Summer employment programmes impact evaluation
Exploring what works to support young people at risk of violence into employment, education or training.
The system challenge
Young people are disproportionality represented in the criminal justice system in England. These individuals are at higher risk of not being in education, employment or training. Currently, there is a lack of causal evidence on what works to help address this issue.
Our aim
To fill the evidence gap and grow our understanding of what works to help young people with risk factors of youth violence into good work.
What are we doing?
We are partnering with Youth Endowment Fund to conduct the first large-scale trial of a summer employment programme in the UK.
Why?
There are examples of summer employment programmes having successfully been delivered in the United States to address education, employment, training and offending outcomes for young people at risk of violence.
While this is promising, we want to know more about the potential impact of similar programmes and if and how they could be translated to a UK context.
Programme overview
Initially, the programme will be delivered by multiple partners across six regions in England and Wales over the summer holidays in 2025, with the view to extending to 2026 pending successful delivery in 2025.
The six-week programme includes:
- a placement preparation week
- five weeks of paid work experience
- dedicated youth worker support
The delivery regions are:
- Greater Manchester
- London
- North East
- South Wales
- West Midlands
- Yorkshire & the Humber
Evaluation approach
Over two years, the evaluation aims to involve 3000 young people aged 16-20.
They will be randomly allocated to either:
- the intervention group – to receive the summer jobs programme
- OR the control group – to receive alternative provision from their referral organisation
Initial findings from the impact evaluation and related IPE will become available in 2028.
How does this build on previous work?
In 2024, Youth Futures co-funded a feasibility study with YEF and DCMS.
It demonstrated that the Summer Employment Programme intervention was ready to be evaluated, first through a pilot followed by a full-scale randomised controlled trial (RCT).
What are RCTs?
Read more about What are RCTs?Randomised control trials are a type of high-quality scientific experiment originally used in medical research.
They are often considered the “gold standard” for generating evidence because randomisation is used to reduce or remove sources of bias, allowing us to rigorously examine cause-effect relationships between a change in practice, or ‘intervention’, and an outcome.
Meet the partners
What are summer employment programmes?
Young people at secondary school or transitioning to higher education are provided with paid work experience and/or subsidised entry-level jobs for a short, fixed period. The programmes typically run for six to eight weeks during school or college summer breaks.
Existing research indicates that summer employment programmes can have positive impacts on education outcomes and personal development, and can reduce the risk of engaging crime or offending. Indirectly, these programmes may also have impacts on youth employment outcomes over the longer term.
