Youth Friendly Employers in the UK For 2014

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1 Join YEUK to make our MP s Youth Friendly #YouthFriendlyMP Campaign 2014 Youth Employment UK CIC is working hard to make the UK Youth Friendly, we want to see more communities and employers supporting young people and ensuring that all young people have the chance of employment. In 2014 we will be inviting all MP s around the UK to become Youth Friendly, to apply for the Youth Friendly badge and attend our event on 9 th of July where we will support them to champion youth friendly practice in their constituencies. To encourage as many MP s as possible to join our #YouthFriendlyMP campaign we need to encourage and empower young people & employers all over the UK to ask their MP. How Youth Friendly are you? Youth unemployment levels have been consistently high since 2011 and WE MUST tackle youth unemployment It costs nothing to be a Youth Friendly business, just a little time & some good business practice Only 1 in 4 employers in the UK offer Work Experience Young people can join the UK s campaign dedicated to tackling their biggest issue; Youth Unemployment Employers who have youth friendly practices benefit in many different ways not least giving themselves a competitive advantage

2 Contents About Youth Employment UK CIC... 3 The catch 22?... 3 What is Youth Friendly? #YouthFriendlyMP Campaign... 5 Your Call to Action... 6 Get Involved... 6 If you are If you are an organisation or an active supporter of young people... 6 We need you to:... 6 How To... 7 Find your MP... 7 Communicate with your MP... 7 What to say... 7 Go and meet them... 8 Follow Up... 8 Campaign Update... 8 Marketing... 9 Press Release: For immediate release... 11

3 About Youth Employment UK CIC Over 900,000 young people are not employed, in education or training, youth unemployment is a serious issue not just for today but, without joined-up action, a critical challenge for all of our futures. For young people getting good advice, guidance and support is crucial. Yet, despite the dire circumstances, there is a shortage of official support for careers guidance, work experience and work-skills preparation. It is not only young people that suffer as employers are also short-changed by a system that fails to provide a work-ready supply of eager new talent. Fortunately the response to these issues from the voluntary and youth sector is extremely encouraging and some brilliant outcomes are being achieved by islands of excellence sprinkled across the country. Unfortunately there has been no integration and little leverage of these various support avenues for young people, schools and colleges or indeed employers. To facilitate our youth and all those who need their talent Youth Employment UK is the only not-forprofit campaigning and membership organisation dedicated to bringing everything available to support youth unemployment into one single access point. Through joined-up action Youth Employment UK serves all parties; our youth, those who support their development and all those employing organisations who provide work experience, internships and employment for our young people. The catch 22? A big barrier for young people is being rejected because of a lack of work experience. Young people are also being rejected from employment because they lack commercial knowledge or relevant work skills. But how can our young people gain the experience, knowledge and skills if employers are not open to offering work experience, school talks, supporting with mock interviews or careers events? This is the youth employment challenge. Youth Employment UK CIC wants to encourage more employers to do whatever small or big thing they can to positively support a young person and show themselves as a Youth Friendly business. What is Youth Friendly? In April 2013 we launched the national Youth Friendly badge, a free award available for all companies who support young people in some way. If we are to significantly reduce youth unemployment we need more employers to create opportunities for mentoring, work experience, careers talks and of course employment.

4 UKCES has identified that only 1 in 4 employers are Youth Friendly and we want to at least double this by 2015; Making the UK Youth Friendly is our campaign to achieve this. Becoming a Youth Friendly employer comes at no cost, a business simply has to commit to doing two Youth Friendly activities from a very extensive menu, the activities range from an hours career talk in a school (costing only time) through to employing young people recommending all the good practice you would expect. Visit to find out more information and to see the application form

5 2014 #YouthFriendlyMP Campaign Campaign Objective 1. To get all MP s to sign up for the Youth Friendly badge on or before the 9 th of July 2. To give MP s a guide (at the 9 th of July parliamentary event) to Youth Friendly activity they can undertake in their constituencies to ensure they meet the Youth Friendly criteria 3. To encourage the adoption/recommendation of the Youth Friendly badge within government/local authority procurement Campaign Purpose UKCES figures suggest only about a quarter of UK employers have employed a young person or given a young person work experience in the past year. A lack of youth friendly employers in the UK is creating one of the biggest barriers for young people into the labour market. The national Youth Friendly badge comes at no-cost and recognises those UK employers with positive youth engagement practices; talks in schools, offering work experience and employment opportunities for young people are just some of the behaviours recognised by the award. It would be a low-cost but high impact approach by political parties, Government departments and councils to adopt a Youth Friendly policy. The public sector spends 227bn a year on goods, services and works across approximately 80,000 registered suppliers.*/** Based on the UKCES figures only 20,000 of these suppliers are providing opportunities for young people. By introducing the Youth Friendly badge as part of the government s procurements process 60,000 more UK employers would have to engage in some form of Youth Friendly behaviour, creating 120,000 more opportunities for work experience, mentoring, career events and employment for the UK s youth. By using the influence of its 227bn a year spend government could increase opportunities which will help to reduce youth unemployment and the subsequent costs of youth unemployment ( 4.8bn in 2012 and over the next decade 28bn according to ACEVO report) without spending any more money. In addition the organisations who are awarded the badge are encouraged to recommend to their own supplier network to adopt Youth Friendly behaviours extending the Youth Friendly badge to an even wider audience. Employers who wish to apply for the badge must be able to demonstrate that they support young people in some way and will in return be supported by Youth Employment UK (YEUK) to ensure they are seen by young people as youth friendly employers and can benefit from support and information around youth employment and engagement from YEUK. * **

6 Your Call to Action To really make our #YouthFriendlyMP Campaign a success we need to get as many people around the UK writing to their MP. We want young people, employers, youth organisations and educators asking their MP what they are doing for youth employment and indeed how youth friendly they are. Get Involved If you are We want you to become a YEUK campaigner, help us make a difference to youth unemployment. There are 5 actions we want you to do and if you can show us you have completed each step we will issue you a YEUK Campaigner Certificate! 1. Sign up to the free YEUK Youth Members club (visit 2. Write to your MP (see the How to section below) 3. Attend a meeting with your MP and take a selfie of the two of you 4. Share your experience with your local newspaper or write a blog piece for us to share 5. Use your social media power to get other young people to do the same If you are an organisation or an active supporter of young people People power works and we need as many people to make contact with their MP and ask them if they will be joining the #YouthFriendlyMP campaign. Your MP works for you, so let them know you expect to see them supporting young people and the business community in your constituency. We need you to: 1. Apply for the free Youth Friendly badge (visit 2. Write to your MP (see the How to section below) 3. Spread the word, tell your connections about the Youth Friendly badge and our call to get Youth Friendly MP s (See the example Tweets, Facebook Posts below)

7 How To Find your MP If you are not sure who your MP is visit the website below, you can put in your postcode and it will tell you who your MP is and how to get hold of them. Communicate with your MP You can write to and your MP, many also have twitter accounts so if you can make sure to follow them and make contact that way. MP s do respond to hand written letters and you can send them to either their constituency office or their address at The Houses of Parliament. Make sure on any letters your home address is listed so that they can see you live in their constituencies, MP s will only deal with residents of their own area. What to say It is best to personalise the letters rather than have a template, we would suggest you include the following; Let your MP know you are a young person/employer/passionate about youth employment. If you have an experience of youth unemployment share it with your MP Let them know you think it is important that MP s take the lead on supporting young people, and you would like to know what they are doing for youth unemployment and if they are youth friendly. Tell them you are a friend/member/youth Friendly badge holder and that you would like to see your MP supporting Youth Employment UK, signing up to the free National Youth Friendly badge and getting involved with the #YouthFriendlyMP campaign. They can visit for more information

8 Go and meet them It is great to meet your MP, they really do work for you and you should be able to talk to them about any local issues you are worried about. All MP s run what is called a surgery in their areas, where the general public are invited to come along and talk to the MP about any issues. Find out when your MP s surgery is and pop along, or you can ask them for a meeting. Go and talk to them about youth unemployment, your experiences and what you think can be done about it. Don t forget a selfie! They will love the opportunity to be seen with young people in their constituencies! Follow Up Where you can make sure you have a follow up action, if you have written to them or met them be sure to contact them again to let them know you are still there. Watch out for our tweets and messages about the #YouthFriendlyMP Campaign share those when you can, especially with your MP. Want to know more? If you would like to get a better understanding of politics, what your MP s role is, why you should vote, who you should vote for there is a great new campaign by The British Youth Council and they have a website that can answer more of your questions - Campaign Update We will list the names of organisations supporting our campaign on the website ( and be updating our campaign pages with your stories and photos as they come in. Most importantly we will start to track which MPs have signed up to attend our parliament event and which MP s have signed up to being Youth Friendly so you can see if your own campaigning has worked.

9 Marketing Social Media We will be using the hashtag #YouthFriendyMP throughout the entire campaign, so you can look for specific tweets from us or create your own. An example of the tweets you might like to use I am supporting the YEUK #YouthFriendlyMP Campaign asking all MP s to support young people, sign up now Have you signed up to the free Youth Friendly badge & ask your MP to help young people! Helping the UK to become Youth Friendly should start with our MP's ask them to become a #YouthFriendlyMP An example of some Facebook posts I am supporting the Youth Employment UK Campaign to help make the UK Youth Friendly. We want all MP's to make their commit to young people and to sign up to the Youth Friendly badge, join us now! #YouthFriendlyMP I have asked my MP what they are doing to tackle youth unemployment, will you help the YEUK campaign and ask yours? #YouthFriendlyMP Find out how you can get involved in the campaign to make the UK Youth Friendly, we are calling on all MP s to lead the way and we need your help! #YouthFriendlyMP Blogs We want you to tell us what you have done to support the #YouthFriendlyMP campaign, if you have a blog share it there and then tell us about it. If you do not have a blog us your story and pictures and we will share on the campaign website. info@yeuk.org.uk Press It is important to get the press behind us so if you have talked to and met with your MP write to your local paper about (good or bad). Ask your local paper, schools newsletter or other local publication to share your story and invite them to join the campaign. You can use the press release below as a starter. On your company website

10 Please use the YEUK supporter logo and put something on your site that will promote the campaign and send users to our campaign website you can also put a copy of this campaign pack on your site or it out to your contacts

11 Press Release: For immediate release National campaign to encourage MP s to support youth employment On the 9 th of July 2014 MP s from across the UK will be invited to sign up to the national Youth Friendly badge at a parliamentary event. Although youth unemployment has started to decrease the number of young people NEET (not in education, employment or training) remains too high and the number of young people experiencing long-term youth unemployment is rising. Many Members of Parliament already support youth employment in some way in their constituencies, some offer work experience or support careers events and talks in schools. Youth Employment UK CIC (YEUK) and the All-Parliamentary Party Group for Youth Unemployment want to see more MP s championing this good practice and using their influence to encourage better youth engagement in their communities. The Youth Friendly badge is a free award given to organisations who commit to supporting youth friendly activities. The aim of the badge is to recognise those UK employers who do engage with young people and support those employers who don t to embrace youth friendly practices. Businesses who support young people benefit in so many ways, young people can add real value to an organisation bringing a new approach and creative ideas, but also it has a positive impact on developing the skills for the next generation workforce and creates a number of local economic benefits. If youth unemployment is to be significantly reduced we need to create a more Youth Friendly UK, employers of all sizes can and should be supporting young people in some way. We are all becoming well versed on the issues of youth unemployment, emotionally, socially and economically, these are very real issues and as a country we simply are not supporting our young people enough. Our politicians should be creating youth friendly constituencies and at the event on the 9 th of July we will be there to support them to do that Says Laura- Jane Rawlings, Chief Exec of Youth Employment UK CIC. Santander, Kent County Council, British Youth Council are amongst the growing number of organisations championing the Youth Friendly Badge. The Skills Minister Matthew Hancock MP and Labour MP Andy Sawford are both badge holders and offering their support to this campaign.

12 Leading up to the event on the 7 th YEUK and its campaign partners will be empowering young people across the UK to lobby their own MP s and ask them what they are doing for youth employment, and whether or not they can consider themselves as youth friendly. For the editor Youth Employment UK CIC is a not-for-profit social enterprise that was established in 2012 in response to the growing youth unemployment crisis. YEUK is the only campaigning and membership organisation working with all of the stake holders invested in youth employment. Visit to see the full range of YEUK services and campaign aims. Visit to see the #YouthFriendlyMP campaign and campaign updates The All-Parliamentary Party Group (APPG) for Youth Unemployment was established in 2013 and is chaired by Pamela Nash MP. The 3 steps to becoming Youth Friendly 1. Sign the Positive Youth Charter 2. Commit to two Youth Friendly activities a year (Careers Talks, Work Experience, Mentoring, Apprenticeships etc) 3. Self-assess companies behaviour against 8 Youth Friendly characteristics List of Campaign Partners British Youth Council Not Going To Uni UK Youth AELP Future-Talent REC National Youth Agency Bright Futures REED-NCFE Some of the organisations who have signed up to the badge

13 Broadstreet JCP London Youth Care Training East Midlands Young Britain TUI Travel PLC Santander UK Power Networks Kent County Council YHA England and Wales UK Youth Savills UK Ltd Tesco Creative Academies Baltic Training Services Office of Matthew Hancock The Geffrye Museum National Skills for Health National Youth Agency Malet Lambert School For more information please contact Laura-Jane Rawlings of Youth Employment UK CIC on or