Over the last 6 years Real Ideas has worked on Game Changer, a free programme that aimed to help young people who are not in employment or education and based in Cornwall & The Isle of Scilly find their path and make the big step into getting a job.
Through a range of support our team of navigators have worked with a selection of sector partners including Cornwall Marine Network, Pentreath Ltd, White Gold, Eden Project and Creative Kernow to stand beside young people. Guiding them through skills development, confidence building, exploring opportunities and finding a pathway. The team believing in the concept of getting stuff done, working with the young person to address possible barriers such as: distractions, health, time, planning, procrastination, no motivation and not knowing what to do.
During the programme we held over 1730 one to one sessions with young people and 735 group sessions. We did everything from creating an enterprise in a day and getting a Level 2 in food safety to working with a local artist to create a tv show and a musician to learn how to produce tracks.
To date Game Changer has engaged with 1805 young people, with 59% of those who have exited the programme going into employment, education or training. Next steps including becoming an aircraft engineer, primary school teacher, self-employed artist and studying at universities or colleges.
Find out more about some of their stories:
- Social prescribed walks at the Eden Project and working with Pentreath – How Chloe began her journey and built on successful career development
- Game Changer picked me up off the ground and gave me the support I needed to explore amazing opportunities and skills I was too anxious to look at myself.” – Freya’s Story
- Training to be a chef and growing mushrooms – Arturas’ Story
- Meet Rhys Stumbles, our Marketing and Administration Apprentice
Amongst turbulent times we have been bold in our beliefs in supporting young people, helping them to grow when they needed it and hopefully making a difference where it mattered most. By treating young people as equals we have been able empower them to achieve what they wanted and progress into their future pathways.
Game Changer is managed by Real Ideas in partnership with Cornwall Marine Network, Creative Kernow, Eden Project, Pentreath and White Gold. Game Changer is part of the national Building Better Opportunities Programme. The National Lottery Community Fund matches funds from the European Social Fund (ESF) 2014-2020 programme to provide joint investment in local projects tackling the root causes of poverty, promoting social inclusion and driving local jobs and growth, particularly for the hardest to reach groups.
