Course was an added bonus!

I first came to the group as a support for a young person, who is also a friend, so was not expecting to take part on the course.  I never really knew what I wanted to do career-wise with my life, but left the first day knowing exactly what that was!  I have found this course has helped me immensely on my own journey of self-discovery.  I have gained a new confidence which I never had before and an understanding of myself and the way I act and react to others, as well as a greater understanding of sales and selling.  I have found this course to be of great benefit and feel that it would benefit others too, not just youth.

Titan Enterprise Partnership

Eureka is currently supporting a consortium of 12 schools in Birmingham in delivering a year long enterprise challenge.

Hosted at the Birmingham Science Park, home of many new creative, technology based businesses, the young people  (from years 9-11) were challenged  to come up with an on line business and give support in starting to think about how they can tackle the challenge. They have a year to work through all the stages on entrepreneurship from idea generation, branding and product development to sales, marketing and trading with customers and Eureka will be there to help them with practical and engaging support and training along the way.

First impressions count!

The honest and open notes written below were the thoughts of one of the young people who has recently started a Eureka course in Bedfordshire.  We think they show that given a chance, young people can really benefit from our courses, and improve their confidence, self esteem and boost their job chances.

"I first heard about the sales and marketing program through my personal advisor. I didn’t want to go there, but the look I got from my personal advisor and my social worker told me I had no choice.

So I went to the program, but not before I has enlisted the company of my friend/ mothers personal assistant, mostly to make sure I didn’t run out on the first day, but also because I never go to something new alone.

When we arrived my friend and I were the first people there other than Donna. We were met with a soft hand shake and were invited to drink coffee. I immediately felt a relaxed atmosphere within the room and settled myself.

After a briefing of what the program entailed, I decided to stay on for my own benefit.

As the program progressed I became a lot more confidant in speaking openly to people. I discovered that because Donna spoke to us like we were adults and not children that gave an easy opportunity to feel like I could share my views and thoughts.

Each session I went to, I learnt more than I thought possible and achieved a better understanding of how business and marketing works. I also learnt how to be a successful business woman, in ways such as how to conduct yourself when meeting a potential client, how to discover their needs and how to close the sale.

During the first few weeks we met a man named Steve, he showed us about how people use different defence mechanisms and how they act depending on the situation. He gave me an insight on what kind of person I was. I found at the beginning of his visit the rout he was going began to be quite intrusive and very personal, but this seemed to be helpful in a way that showed me what was standing In the way of me achieving my goals.

All in all, I believe that this program has not only given me the skills to be a successful business woman but has also given me an opportunity for self-discovery. I am very glad I gave this program a chance"

Youth Enterprise Live - Thanks for visiting us!

Although it seems a long time ago now, we'd just like to say a big 'Thank You' for coming to see us at our stand or listening to our seminar and workshop at Youth Enterprise Live.  We had a great time and met some wonderful people, who are doing great work encouraging and supporting Young People.

If you'd like to find out more about Eureka and the work we do supporting Young People in schools, colleges and through councils, who may be NEET, in danger of becoming NEET or just want to learn more about Sales, Marketing and Enterprise Education, please visit our website: www.eurekayouth.co.uk

Youth Enterprise Live

Come and see us at Youth Enterprise Live, Earls Court, 12/13th October - stand 403!

Youth Enterprise Live!

Don't forget that we are going to be at stand 403 at Youth Enterprise Live next week (12-13th Oct) at Earls Court!
If you're at all interested in business, come and see us!  We will also be hosting a seminar 'Let's Talk S&M' on Saturday and a workshop 'So you want to be an Entrepreneur' on Friday.

The government’s youth contract is a farce... OFFICIAL !

Anybody involved in trying to actually deliver the Government’s Youth Contract already knew it was a farce and today a group of MPs reviewing it made it official.

“The government's youth contract is not enough to tackle the scale of youth unemployment”, a group of MPs has said. The youth contract provides £1bn for a range of schemes aimed at getting young people into work.

Labour's shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne said the report showed the government's plan for youth jobs "is failing and we need to change course fast”. He added: "This is now a very loud wake-up call, at a time when the country is in a double-dip recession made in Downing Street."

The report talks about many reasons why it is failing miserably, such as it being largely targeted at 16-18 year olds without a SINGLE GCSE. This is a ridiculously narrow and meaningless criteria. Is it really only those without a single qualification that needs help? I think the average 8 year old could work out the answer to that question!!

The report talks about difficulties in identifying people who qualify. (That’ll be because the government cuts have ripped out the infrastructure that tracked and worked with challenged young people (youth workers and Connexions) in what was some unbelievably short-termist approaches to savings that is now coming back to haunt!)

But the real gorilla in the committee room was not mentioned but it’s a massive barrier to effective implementation - the inconceivably absurd levels of bureaucracy and punitive commercial terms attached to the contract.

The paperwork and administration involved for the youth contract and indeed many other such government schemes is truly astounding. Much of it is duplication and pointless bureaucracy. To actually deliver appropriate reporting and control it could reasonably be cut by two thirds. The photo above is of the paperwork for a 6 day course for 15 young people!! And what it means is that more time is being taken up on admin and paperwork than in working with the young people and that is surely outrageous. Why is the report not screaming about this?

The other major barrier is around actually finding quality providers to deliver the programmes. Providers only get paid for delivery 6 months in arrears dependent on successful outcomes, i.e. getting jobs for these young people without a single GCSE, who are competing with the other 2 million unemployed. This is a cash flow and commercial risk of epic proportions that few quality providers are prepared to take on. We know of at least 3 major providers of programmes for NEET young people who declined to even bid for the work because it was simply set up to fail.

If one was being cynical you could look at the T&Cs attached to delivery of the youth contract and think perhaps they were designed to be unachievable such that the much touted “£1billion programme” will not actually cost the government anywhere near that! Is it perhaps another elaborate case of Government Spin?

The risk of 1 million unemployed young people to the country is immense; social unrest, development of an underclass, to say nothing of the welfare costs and the immense waste of human potential. In light of this it is nothing short of an outrage that the government’s response to it in the youth contract is so totally and fatally flawed.

Eureka at Youth Enterprise Live!

We're pleased to announce that Eureka will be attending Youth Enterprise Live! on October 12th and 13th.  Our Director, Patricia will be presenting a seminar 'Let's talk S&M' - Top 10 sales and marketing tips for entrepreneurs and start ups.  She will also be running a workshop 'So you want to be an entrepreneur? Make it a reality!'  Please come and visit us on stand 320 to see how we can make Enterprise fun!
For more details please visit http://www.youthenterprise-live.co.uk

Inspiring the next generation

 Congratulations Team GB what an amazing performance at the Olympics and the Para Olympics!

Let’s hope that the legacy of London 2012 will be that we have a generation of kids who now want to get out there and be best that they can – whatever their chosen field.

Young people now have a whole host of the new heroes to look up to whether it be the poster girl of the games Jessica Ennis or those that were unknown before the games such as Max Whitlock who won two bronze medals in the gymnastics or David Weir in the para games  – surely these people are the role models we want our children to look up to as opposed to the ‘wannabe’ tv reality stars.

What has been so impressive about Team GB is both their performance on the sporting field and their attitude in both victory and defeat. None of the athletes believed it was their God given right to win a medal.  Whilst they all have a self-believe in their abilities all of them understood it is only through hard work and working with the experts in their field that they would reach Olympic glory. 

At Eureka whilst we hope that 2012 will have discovered the next Jessica Ennis or Bradley Wiggins our hopes are less of Gold Medals and more about seeing our young people gaining a renewed sense of self-belief.

Whilst only a handful of the next generation will be performing at Rio in 2016 or the Olympics in 2020 with the same self-belief, motivation and hard work who knows what our young people can achieve.

Having worked with the next generation via our NEET and school programmes we have witnessed what a difference the right training and support makes to a young person’s chances in life.  

We know that often what young people have learned from negative role models around them is poor work ethic, low self belief and low motivation. What we seek to do at Eureka is to help young people gain some sense of focus for their life and build their motivation and their skills to help them achieve success.

If the next generation can grasp this new found self-belief that our young athletes have shown then London 2012 will leave a lasting legacy that will have a profound effect on the nation both on and off the sporting field.

We were pleased to be invited to a debate on Youth Enterprise and Employment in the House of Lords recently, as part of the run up to Youth Enterprise Live.  Looking forward to being part of the show in October.

Could voice coaching help teachers control their classes?

Should teachers get voice coaching to help manage their classes?

A recent Sunday Times article discussed the effectiveness of tone and voice when controlling their classes. It discusses how getting the right tone of voice can be tremendously helpful for teacher's levels of authority and ability to control a class. Getting this vocal tone right can be challenging especially for some female staff.

      Another voice issue that teachers experience is protecting and taking care of your voice as a "tool of the trade", it's clearly an issue when too much strain is placed on the voice and results in teachers having to take time off with lost voices. There are many ways to protect against this.

If you'd like to know more about voice coaching and how it can help you enhance your authority within class, perhaps as a useful inset day topic,  please contact us.

Gaming the way ahead for NEETS

Gaming the way ahead for NEETS

For the nearly 1 million young million people who are classed as ‘NEET’ (Not in Education, Employment or Training) the future in the current economic climate is very uncertain. For young people who are lacking in qualifications their situation may feel very bleak.

For a number of reason students are leaving education unengaged, having not reached their full potential. If the UK is to tackle the rising problem of NEETS and all the associated problems that go with them it is key that we find a way to re-engage with these young people.

Eureka Youth has been pioneering new training methods for this sector of the NEET population. Their approach is to engage with the students using a medium that they enjoy and respond to; the world of electronic gaming.

Whilst at first glance if you were to drop in on a Eureka training course you may just see a group of young people playing on a Playstation. However if you were to stop and look more closely you would see the students developing skills in sales and marketing, ITC, CV writing, time management and project skills.

Electronic Games are an area that young people can relate to and more importantly it is an area they are willing share their opinions and knowledge of. At Eureka we’ve taken the Playstation platform to develop practical training that gives young people transferable skills that they can take to an organisation

One of our current programmes is using the popular game ‘Little Big Planet’ to introduce the concepts of sales, marketing to the group. During the 6 week programme students will develop their own business plans which will include the areas of sales and marketing, finance, IT development.  Alongside this the students will also be developing their ‘soft skills’ in CV writing, presentation, report writing and time management.

The gaming industry as a whole now makes more money than Hollywood and the UK is a leading play in the gaming sector. This is an industry which is constantly adapting with new product development, sales and marketing all playing a crucial part in the success of businesses operating in this sector making it a perfect choice on which to build our unique training around.

Eureka Youth offer training for both NEETS and Pre-NEETS and are currently offering training courses in the Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and London areas. 

When one door closes – the next is hard to open!

The old adage ‘When one door closes another opens’ is certainly not true for around one million young people who are classed as NEET, ‘ not in education or training’.

The latest Government figures reveal a total of 954,000 young people in England were not in employment or training during the first three months of the year.

For many young people their lack of qualifications and skills combined with a down turn in the economy has meant that when the door to formal education at 16 closes their chances of opening the door to their first job is greatly diminished.  

The latest report from The Work Foundation reveals that whilst the current recession is certainly having an impacting the underlying problem of NEETs has been on the increase over the last decade. Their report reveals that young people have been finding it increasingly harder to take the first step on the employment ladder, accounting for most of rise in the number of NEET people.

At Eureka Schools we have been working successfully with young people, stepping in where so often traditional education has failed to give them the skills they need to succeed in the job market.

We believe in teaching young people in a way they want to learn as opposed to the way the formal education system wants to teach. This means using gaming, technology, drama and theatre to give individuals the key skills that employers are looking for. As well as gaining ‘soft skills’ in the areas of CV writing, interview techniques, money management they also have the opportunity to gain more formal qualifications. Students have the chance to work towards qualifications from the Institute of Sales & Marketing Management, for some these will be the first qualifications they have achieved.  At the end of the programme all students go away with increased confidence, self-belief and ambition.

The Work Foundation report also highlights that if we are to have a real impact on the overall NEET figures we urgently need to address the issue of those individuals that can be classed as ‘Pre-NEET’. At Eureka Schools our Pre-NEET programmes use the same techniques as used for NEETS.  Our Pre- NEET programme is about prevention rather than cure. Here we help schools re-engage with young people to enable them participate to gain valuable life skills and at least minimum qualifications.

Self possessed, confident and passionate - today's young people!

With all the bad press about young people, dysfunctional hoodies and disruptive "youffs", what a joy it was to be the chair of the judges at the Rotary "Youth Speaks" district finals in Wheathampstead last week.

The young people were self possessed confident, passionate and sincere. They spoke about a range of thoughtful, even philosophical topics such as "The image of young people", "Wishes" and "Olympic spirit". ... Oh that the Daily Mail would come and make headlines out of that !!

NEET young people's view of government work initiative

We asked some of the NEET young people on our current course what there reactions were to the government initiative for young people - here are their reactions !

Vicki - "I totally agree with the government as most youngsters nowadays are either just sitting in all day watching television and playing video games, or getting into trouble with the police. They do this just to get attention as thee is nothing out there for us teenagers because most of us didn't pay attention in school and left with near to no qualifications. We cannot get a job because we don't have any experience and no-one will give us the chance to prove ourselves and I honestly think it's unfair because everyone will come to this point in their lives, and I personally think that everyone should have a chance"

James - "I think it could be a turn for the best because all people do nowadays is do what the government thinks, but not for the best. They also drink alcohol, play games and do drugs all day trying to make their boredom go away and this routine continues to go on and being on jobseekers it's a constant chain of standing still"

Kevin - "I think it's an amazing idea to bring earn or learn as there are people out there who want to learn or have a job, as people like me are sick and tired of not having a job.  People might be sick of not having the chance of making a name for themselves, so I would recommend the Earn or Learn any day of the week"

Are the government REALLY helping NEET young people?

“Isn’t it amazing that the government make all  the recent announcements (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17104998) of schemes to help NEET young people without a trace of irony !?

Is it not bizarre that the government are now pouring millions into youth unemployment and NEET young people when they have so recently slashed much of the youth provision and infrastructure that was previously in place to support exactly these young people. It’s a bit like cancelling your insurance, having a crash and then having to throw loads more at it to fix the damage...!