As we accelerate towards a knowledge and service-based economy, a young person’s ability to communicate, empathise, and work well in a team – as well as their self-confidence and sense of self-respect – is vital to their employability and life skills.

The effect of practical and vocational learning and work-based training experiences on young people’s life skills has been overlooked. While there has been plenty of research on how individuals’ capabilities grow during their infancy, there has been little on how these skills develop throughout a young person’s life. New neuroscience research has shown that the parts of the brain that are responsible for character continue to develop during adolescence and early adulthood.

Access All Areas, research supported by the Foyer Federation, uses original analysis of the British Cohort Study to assess the impact of internships and apprenticeships on the employability, wellbeing and life skills of young people between the ages of 16 and 24. As well as exploring how pre-work training can improve life chances for disadvantaged groups, Demos examined how initiatives like the Foyer Federation’s ‘Working Assets’ programme help improve at-risk young people’s work-readiness.

Using data from the British Cohort Study, we examined individual attitudes towards the skills they had acquired and successes they had achieved. Analysing information gathered about some 8,000 individuals, we compared the attitudes, feelings, confidence and sense of self-awareness of those who had successfully completed an apprenticeship with a non-apprenticeship group.

For more information on our work on young people’s wellbeing and capabilities, please contact Eugene Grant

Read Access All Areas here.