Education and Enterprise

Education and Youth Services

Vocational Skills Training

Our Vox Centres offer a first-hand insight into a range of industry sectors, with highly experienced tutors on hand to guide learners through formal qualifications and support the development of general employability skills in order to give them an important head start in the world of work

Alternative Curriculum Support

We work in schools to help teachers create the best possible package for young people struggling to access mainstream subjects. Our contribution includes personal development activities, teamwork and communication interventions and confidence building programmes;

NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) Reduction Programmes

For those young people who leave school and do not move into further education, training or work we offer a number of packages to help raise their aspirations and match their skills and interests with local education and employment opportunities;

• Engagement & Coaching

The division also specialises in ‘finding’ clients – working at street level to raise awareness of training and employment – and mentoring young people to assist them with the identification and removal of barriers.

To deliver all this, we work in partnership with Local Authorities, RDAs, schools, colleges, training providers, Connexions, Youth Offending Teams, employers and businesses

Making an impact

• Our Vox Centre portfolio is expanding rapidly – we aim to have 30 up and running by the end of 2013
• Vox Centres offer training in sectors such as Construction, Hair & Beauty, Catering and Motor Vehicle, with small group ratios of just eight learners per tutor
• In 2009/10 our division delivered activity to over 4,000 young people
• Our current progression rates from NEET support activity is in excess of 65%
• Since 2008, we have actively engaged over 1,000 employers to support the work-related learning agenda

Enterprise

Awareness Raising

Our teams work at neighbourhood level in order to inspire those who may dream about setting up in business to explore their ideas a little further and provide that all-important support to help them access traditional business start-up services;

Enterprise Coaching

Our team of Enterprise Coaches provide workshops and 1:1 support to A4e clients taking part in our programmes who are interested in working for themselves;

Brokerage & Advice

We offer strategic guidance to Local Authorities and other agencies around procuring the most effective start-up support for their area and achieving best value from their providers;

Specialist Help

To enhance local business support packages we can offer help to those starting companies in a range of subjects, from writing the perfect business plan through to effective book-keeping; HR & marketing support; employee skills training; access to finance

Enterprise Education

For young people with an aspiration to work for themselves the team offers a range of engaging, interactive courses to build their knowledge, skills and enthusiasm and help them to understand the steps they will need to take to start their own business.

Making an impact

• A4e’s Enterprise division manages in excess of £30M in order to buy in effective business support
• Between October 2009 and May 2010 we supported over 70 long-term unemployed clients & IB recipients from Flexible New Deal & Pathways programmes to set up their own business
• We have engaged with over 700 young people in secondary schools through delivering interactive enterprise events since March 2010
• We deliver a range of specialist support contracts funded by local authorities
• Since April 2009 we have supported over 60 businesses to access funding and assisted over 400 with financial forecasting, book-keeping etc