Rising numbers of Hastings young people not in education or employment - here's what's being done to help

This is more than three per cent higher than the national average, with 5.6 per cent of young people in the whole of England being classed as NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training).

Factors which can indicate a young person is at risk of becoming NEET include: frequent absence from school and suspensions; challenging home lives; poor mental health or learning difficulties, and becoming a young carer or parent.

Transitional periods, for example between school and college, have also been highlighted as common times for young people to fall victim to becoming NEET.

Hoping to get to the bottom of these issues is the team behind CXK’s research project, Connected Futures Hastings, which has been established in partnership with East Sussex County Council and Hastings Borough Council.

The first-of-its-kind funded project is training young people to become peer-to-peer researchers and connect with other youths in Hastings to discover the root causes of the disadvantages young people face around employability.

Its ultimate aim is to inform system change and form a coherent approach that will enable young people to succeed.

Currently in its research phase, the project is targeting youth clubs, such as Active Hastings and YMCA, to speak directly with young people with lived experiences and get their own ideas on what needs to change.

Leah Perris, Connected Futures youth worker, said: “We as adults can sit around a table and say it’s because Maths and English has gone down the drain, or because they live in deprived areas, but it’s not that at all.

“We’ve had our young people included as part of our system’s mapping and they’ve come up with masses of ideas around stereotyping, and bringing them together as part of the community.

“They feel like they’re very disengaged in the community and that they don’t have a space, so something like that could then connect them and want to stay down here and secure employment.”

While the project is still in the process of discovering the true causes of youth unemployment, it is already becoming clear that any support available for young people is just too difficult for many to access.

Leah said: “I think there is a lot of support out there [but] I think it’s very pinholed.

“There’s not enough funding for young people groups and services to be able to sit a young person down and deal with every single barrier or issue that they’re facing and, right now, that is something that is failing our young people.”

Carrie Ann Arnold Williams, 18, moved to Hastings when she was two-years-old.

Describing life growing up in the town,she said: “It’s been like a rollercoaster.

"One minute it’s alright, the next you get some bad things. I was getting excluded, getting into fights, getting into trouble with the police. I got diagnosed with ADHD in year nine and as soon as the school found out, that’s when they were moving me from school to school and excluding me a lot more.

“I think some schools want people where they don’t have anything wrong with them, so when it comes to Ofsted inspections they just have the students that are capable and [have] high grades.

“We always get pushed to the side, always in isolation or doing different non-curriculum stuff.”

Carrie Ann also said she was removed from her school’s system prior to taking her GCSEs and was then told she couldn’t sit them because she ‘wasn’t a pupil’. As a result of not getting the qualifications she needed, she was unable to enrol on the college course she wanted and was instead put on a course that ‘just had spaces left’.

Carrie Ann is currently volunteering for a number of organisations in Hastings and has now sought support from the Youth Justice Service and CAMHS.

She said: “I got kicked out of college in January time and since then I’ve had loads more support. When you get to the point where you get kicked out of places, that’s when they want to know you. That’s when they start to care. But it shouldn’t actually get to that point.

The 18-year-old hopes to return to college and study personal training, after which she aspires to go to university, though she said she’ll ‘always come back to Hastings’.

She said: “It’s pretty amazing when you see the right sides of Hastings. Everyone’s just so friendly here. You can walk down the street and someone will ask you if you’re alright, it’s like one massive community.

“You can’t leave it alone. I feel like as soon as you’ve been here, it’s one of those places you can’t leave.”

ESCC has a number of services you can access if you need employment support, including the Youth Employability Service and Connected Futures Hastings.

A spokesperson for the council said: “In East Sussex, we have very low figures for young people who are ‘not known’ which means that we are able to identify and provide effective support for young people who are NEET.

"We have a very successful The Youth Employability Service (YES) who deliver targeted support for young people who are NEET or at risk of becoming NEET.

"We are working with partners to ensure there are pathways for young people into education, training and employment post 16 and that these are matched to local skills needs.”