Daniel Canavan, founder of The Spark Group, is firmly committed to empowering Birmingham’s youths. He centers his work on transforming the lives of those most frequently ensnared in generations of joblessness. Most of these young people are “second or third generation” unemployed, with a persistent history of deeply entrenched barriers to entering the labor force. Canavan’s initiative is to inspire them to dream bigger and equip them with the skills to land them high-paying jobs and meaningful careers.
Our group, the Spark Group from Stoke-on-Trent, offers focused training to engage, inspire and support these young people. Demand for its programs is through the roof, living testament to the desperate need for support in this frequently overlooked demographic. Canavan faces a major hurdle: finding employers willing to offer more than one or two days of work per week. This combination makes it more difficult to achieve meaningful long-term job readiness and stability for many young people.
Yet in the West Midlands, an astounding 78,000 16-18 year olds are out of education, employment or training. This shocking figure means that more than one out of every eight people in this age range is impacted. It shows the extreme and urgent need for intervention to take place.
Kiera Elliott, who lives at Merstow Place supported accommodation in Evesham. She’s just one of the young people benefiting from these investments. Elliott spent time experiencing homelessness before being placed in Merstow Place. Her journey is a poignant example of the challenges so many face on the road to finding sustainable, meaningful work. As her testimony related, the reality of securing new jobs came with significant financial burdens.
“If I’m working I’m not going to have money, I’m going to be stuck in debt.” – Kiera Elliott
Zoe-Lane Littlewood, another Youth Employment UK ambassador told us about the obstacles young jobseekers are up against. She urged the audience to consider just how few organizations there are that are willing to invest in skills development over time.
“I think we expect people to be fully-fledged, ready to work when in actuality we’ve had Covid, we’ve had so many obstacles that people just forget what young people have gone through.” – Zoe-Lane Littlewood
Littlewood criticized the educational system for keeping students until they inevitably do not pass their GCSEs. This negligence paves over their road to discovering vibrant educational and meaningful employment opportunities.
“They’re trapped in a school waiting until they fail their GCSEs before they can go out and try and help us fill this massive skills gap we’ve got nationally.” – Daniel Canavan
The UK government recently announced an £820 million Jobs Guarantee Scheme. This initiative specifically focuses on people who have been unemployed for 18 months or more by providing paid positions. As great a step as this initiative is, Canavan found it disappointing that more money wasn’t funneled directly to businesses to help them create jobs.
“If you can make businesses boom, you create a lot more opportunities.” – Daniel Canavan
He emphasized that we’ve done a great job of getting young people ready to enter the workforce. Read more on our blog about the need to increase employer engagement and support.
“All the effort’s been put into the young person’s perspective, where the energy would be better spent with the employers and the businesses.” – Daniel Canavan
I know many in the field who agree with this sentiment. Connecticut’s leaders know that the best and most successful youth employment initiatives require a focus on both job seekers and potential employers.
Today, Canavan sees a huge divide in opportunity on the basis of student achievement. He noted that students who graduate with high GPAs and are prepared to enter the workforce have all the access to apprenticeships and other training programs they want. By comparison, many face far more daunting challenges.
“Those that have got the grades, those that are work-ready, have got plenty of opportunity to get into courses and onto programmes and potentially into apprenticeships.” – Daniel Canavan
The deepening pandemic-era crisis in youth unemployment is a wake-up alarm that demands immediate response from governments, businesses and youth-serving organizations to solve. We need to do more with concerted action to connect the dots between training and opportunity for work. If we fail to act, innumerable young lives will still be lost.
