Thanking Day 2023

Thanking Day 2023

Our Thanking Day – 28th March 2023

We arranged this Thanking Day to celebrate the vast impact and generosity of our funders, business partners, volunteers and supporters. We want to express how grateful we are for your support in ensuring we can continue supporting under-served young people to transition successfully from school into further education or employment. 

Throughout the day we will be sharing social media posts spotlighting our key partners and meeting with our funders and business partners to celebrate the impact of their support.

Our Annual Review 

We’re delighted to mark our Thanking Day by launching our 2021/22 annual review today, which outlines the impact of our work. 

Last year, we worked with 1,286 young people, a 15% increase from 2020/21. 82% of our FutureMe 2021 graduates are in education, employment or training. The national average for the most comparable group is 67%. It is important to us that every young person we work with knows they have the potential to succeed in life and to secure a fulfilling job or career. This wouldn’t be possible without the support from our loyal funders and partners. 

Looking to the year ahead and as we enter into the final two years of our five-year strategy, we have a renewed focus on relationships with our schools and corporate partners. We are determined to continue delivering high quality coaching programmes to our impressive community of young people. 

Thank You

To demonstrate the impact of our work, we want our supporters to hear directly from our young people. ThinkForward CEO, Ashley McCaul, interviewed young people on each of our three programmes about the impact of our work. Here’s what they had to say: 

Our young trustees, Dan Easterbrook and Sally Cartwright, would also like to say a special thank you: 

An enormous thank you to every single person and organisation who has supported our work, we couldn’t do it without you! 

Covid – one year on

Covid-19 one year on

It’s one year since schools in England closed to the majority of students due to Covid-19.

Overnight we shifted to staff working from home. Our CEO Ashley McCaul, with support from our board, led by our chair Charlie Green, immediately recognised that in unprecedented times, we were a lifeline for many of our young people and their families, and made the decision to keep our programmes running.

Like our young people, we had to draw on resilience  to keep operating while managing staff illness and the difficult personal circumstances many of our team faced at home. We adapted to remote delivery for coaching and innovated to find new ways to host our employability activities.

In the last year we also produced a new five-year strategy and we are developing a new equalities plan which will sit at the heart everything we do. To make sure the voices of young people are heard by government, we joined the Youth Employment Group, set up by Impetus.

As we look ahead we can see the prospect of some normality returning, but for our young people we know the job market will be incredibly challenging and we will continue to build on our work with employers to create more job pathways for young people.

Ashley said: “I’d like to pay tribute to ThinkForward’s staff, our school, employer and funding partners and our young people, who all faced huge challenges due to Covid-19. I’m proud that we continued supporting young people through the pandemic. Our focus now is to ensure every young person on our programmes has the better and brighter future they deserve. Through coaching and employability activities we will be doing all we can to prepare them to gain the confidence, independence and skills they need for their next steps.”

Two new young trustees appointed

Two fantastic young trustees have been appointed to join our board. Their recruitment is part of our commitment to ensure the insights and lived experiences of young people inform decision-making at the highest level of our organisation.

We are delighted that one of young trustees is a former Nottingham student from our programme. Sally Cartwright went to Ellis Guilford School where she worked with coach Daljit. Sally joined ThinkForward in 2016 and instantly embraced the benefits of the coaching relationship and the opportunities the programme provided.

Sally is now 18 and a care assistant in a residential home. In the summer she was one of our Coronavirus Community Heroes, in recognition of her incredible resilience and frontline work during the pandemic. Her ambition is to work in the NHS.

Sally said: ‘By being a young trustee on the ThinkForward board I aspire to bring more opportunity and equality to all young people. ThinkForward helped me by developing my self-assurance, resilience and drive. My mission is to help ThinkForward grow and be accessible to more young people. I feel one of this generations’ biggest challenges is overcoming mental health issues so young people can become who they dream to be.’

Our second young trustee is Dan Easterbrook. Dan is from Dorset and works for the Civil Service. He was inspired to join the board due to his own experiences as a person with Cerebral Palsy Hemiplegia. Dan set up a digital community for people with Cerebral Palsy Hemiplegia, where nearly 400 people can support each other to tackle and share solutions to the barriers, challenges, and problems they face. Dan is also an ambassador for the Young Trustees Movement.

Dan, who is 22, said: ‘I would not be where I am today without coaching and mentorship, which enabled me to overcome the obstacles and labels I have been subject to as a disabled person. I cannot wait to use my experience having overcome those barriers to support, amplify and champion incredible young people as a trustee for ThinkForward.’

Our chair Charlie Green welcomed the two new trustees to the board: ‘Sally and Dan are both incredibly impressive individuals and I am delighted they are joining ThinkForward’s board. Their appointments form part of ThinkForward’s pledge to support young people to develop their voice and influence. As we start to implement a new five-year strategy, they will play a significant role in our governance and they are uniquely placed to support the board to better understand the challenges young people face today.’