Lewisham DfE Care Leavers SOC
Helping care leavers in London to live independently, and secure education and employment opportunities.
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Department for Education
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Royal Borough of Greenwich
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London Borough of Lewisham
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London Borough of Bromley
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I-Aspire
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Depaul UK
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Location
London
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Launch
Nov 2018
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Area
Education, Employment & Housing
Collaborators & funding partners
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Department for Education
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Greenwich Council
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Lewisham Council
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Bromley Council
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I-Aspire
Delivery Partners
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Depaul UK
Team
Collaborators & funding partners
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Department for Education
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Greenwich Council
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Lewisham Council
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Bromley Council
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I-Aspire
Delivery Partners
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Depaul UK
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Andrew is Co-Founder of Bridges Outcomes Partnerships and Executive Director of Operations, Innovation and Learning. He is a Director of Kirklees Better Outcomes Partnership, GM Homes Partnership, Homelessness Support, the Single Homeless Prevention Service and is a Trustee of West London Zone.
Prior to Bridges, Andrew was Managing Director of a social enterprise “Baobab” in Madagascar, and a non-Executive board member of two other financial inclusion social enterprises, in Senegal and China.
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Iciar Ania, Executive Director at Bridges Outcomes Partnerships, has been working with Bridges for the last 6 years, during which time she has designed and implemented more than 10 Outcomes Partnerships related to:
• Supporting care experienced young people to access employment and education opportunities,
• Supporting young people with their mental health and wellbeing,
• Helping families stay together through family therapy,
• Supporting vulnerable women at risk of multiple removals and/or sexual harm and violence, and
• Supporting unpaid carers to improve their wellbeing and sustain their caring role.Prior to joining Bridges Outcomes Partnerships, Iciar worked in Investment Banking at Arcano Group and Nomura Group. Iciar also spent 2 years in Cambodia working for a charity that supports families of people with physical and intellectual disabilities.
Iciar holds a Bachelor of Science from Northeastern University in the USA and from ICADE in Spain and an MBA from INSEAD.
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Steve’s role as Programme Director, is to provide capacity building and programme and performance management to a portfolio of socially-minded organisations. These organisations deliver innovative solutions to prevent and relieve homelessness and increase the education and employment prospects of young people, using an outcomes-based approach.
Steve holds a BEng in Civil and Structural Engineering from the University of Sheffield and after a brief career in Engineering spent 20 years growing a business supporting long term unemployed and people with disabilities and health problems develop skills and employment to live independently through outcomes-based contracting.
Overview
We believe that life outcomes for care leavers can significantly improve when they are supported in their transition out of the care system.
BOP teamed up with Depaul UK, a national homelessness charity that has also pioneered outcomes-based services and models to help combat youth homelessness. Together, we designed a project to support care leavers aged 16+ who were NEET, or at risk of becoming NEET, and were facing limited life chances in terms of their education, employment, accommodation and/or well-being.
The resulting I-Aspire programme, delivered by Depaul, used a tailored approach that focused on individual care leavers’ needs and aspirations. The team also worked closely with employers to secure suitable opportunities for the young people on the programme.
Depaul’s ‘Endeavour’ tool helped to measure the impact of I-Aspire – recording young people’s progress and development over the short-, medium- and long-term across employment, health and housing status outcomes. It also looked at intermediate and softer outcomes that indicate other forms of progress and change.
Delivery innovations
An outcomes partnership has enabled a much more collaborative, flexible approach to problem-solving. This has facilitated a number of significant delivery innovations, including:
- Developing close working relationships between I-Aspire Progression Coaches and the Local Authority personal advisers was essential in keeping in close contact with young people during the pandemic.
- A strong focus on good quality data and reporting means clearer visibility over engagement rates, enabling the team to target young people whose engagement levels dipped during the pandemic.
- Internal and external grants supported young people with laptops, tablets and data packages over the pandemic, helping maintain their engagement with I-Aspire and enable online access to education and employment opportunities.
Outcomes
Almost 240 young people engaged with the programme, of which over 100 started education and training courses – including 13 starting University/ Higher Education. 67% of those who engaged started employment.
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239
Starts to the programme
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101
Entered into education/training course
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161
Started employment
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£2.1m
Outcomes achieved