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Statistics show that in 2019 – 2020, the percentage of young people leaving State-funded mainstream schools without any plans to continue in education, employment or training were 8.9 per cent in Hastings, compared to 7 per cent across East Sussex and 5.6 per cent in the whole of England.

The Connected Futures Hastings project aims to change this by investigating disadvantages young people may be facing, including: challenging family circumstances; school absences and suspensions; and lack of appropriate, consistent, integrated support.

The project will see a group of 10 young people in Hastings becoming peer to peer researchers who will connect with other young adults in the area. With the aim of informing system change, they will listen to and record their experiences to discover the root causes of the disadvantages young people face around employability.

Cllr James Bacon (left) with the team involved in Connected Futures Hastings at its launch.

The project was launched by CXK, an organisation dedicated to transforming the lives of young people and adults, in partnership with East Sussex County Council (ESCC) and Hastings Borough Council, and has been funded through a Connected Futures grant by the Youth Futures Foundation.

More than 50 local stakeholders and partners, including the Mayor of Hastings and representatives from ESCC, gathered at the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery last month to attend the project’s launch event.

The event saw young people speak about their experiences and challenges around employability, whilst a representative from ESCC highlighted the power of young people advocating for the causes they care about in the community; a central focus of the project.

Leader of Hastings Borough Council, Councillor Paul Barnett, said: “Hastings Borough Council are proud to be part of the core partnership for this project.

A project has been launched to identify factors contributing to high levels of young people in Hastings who are not in education, employment or training.

"It provides a great opportunity to improve outcomes for the young people of our town.

“This is a pioneering project for the town, and it’s great to be linking in with towns across the country so that we can share lessons learnt and can build skills and resilience across our community and further afield.”

For more information about the project, visit: www.cxk.org/services/connectedfutures.

Any young people in Hastings or surrounding areas, aged 16-24, that are keen to get involved in co-developing the research, email: [email protected].

Project launched to investigate high levels of Hastings young people not in education, employment or training