Our Head of Impact Lee Robinson has an analysis of the six-month outcomes for our latest ThinkForward graduates, and it’s good news.

We have recently reviewed the first results of our check in with graduates of the ThinkForward class of 2019 six months after they completed our programme, and I’ve now got the pleasure of sharing our initial findings.

We are thrilled to see that 86% of young people in London and Nottingham (known outcomes, 86% response rate) are now in education or employment. This is an improvement on the EET rate (Education, Employment and Training) figure of 83% we recorded three months after our young people graduated. 86% of all programme graduates have experienced some form of education, employment or training during the six months immediately following graduation.

This is an impressive outcome, particularly when we consider that programme participants had been selected in Year 8 as being at high risk of not being EET in the future. In fact, 74% of all programme graduates grew up in the 20% most deprived communities in England as measured by the IDACI (Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index).

Our results indicate that ThinkForward’s programme has been successful in closing the gap for this group of young people and helped to ensure that their outcomes are more reflective of the national averages for all young people. We also hope to do further research and evaluation work to benchmark the programme’s success in the coming months .

It’s also noteworthy that our young people are moving into ‘high-quality’ EET opportunities, with over 70% of young people who are moving into education progressing on to level 3 and 4 opportunities and 96% of young people progressing into work which is permanent employment. We also know that 95% of those employed were working more than 16 hours a week and 85% were paid at or above the Real Living Wage. The most common sectors for them to move into were hospitality, food and event management; retail & sales; and construction, property and trades.

It is important to remember that this data was collected just before the coronavirus pandemic began to have a significant impact on the labour market and so we will be holding further follow-up calls in the coming months to establish how the current situation is impacting these young people’s progression.

If want to find out more about our results, check out our updated impact pages for access to the headline results and an interactive dashboard where you can explore what the class of 2019 has achieved since completing the ThinkForward programme.