Generation COVID: what does the future hold for UK youth?

Today is A Level results day. With announcements of a recession cruelly landing on National Youth Day yesterday, how is the young COVID generation coping, and who is out there to support them?

According to The National Youth Agency’s April 2020 report, Out of Site: Vulnerable Young People COVID-19 Response, “There are over one million young people with known needs that have been amplified by the pandemic and an estimated two million young people with emerging needs triggered or caused by COVID-19.”

Following a decade of austerity, youth services are already in a weak position, with funding per child or young person falling each year, over 1,000 youth services and children’s centres being closed, and local authority spending cut by 40% on average.

With COVID hitting youth services, many charities are struggling to cover core costs and keep delivering. But it’s not all doom and gloom — ventures from our own portfolio are finding ways to pivot, and filling in the cracks to support their young people.

From sex education, to mental health provisions, access to the arts and homelessness prevention, here’s how our ventures are working across the crisis to support young people:

Cracked It trains young people who are involved in gangs or are at risk of school exclusion to fix cracked iPhones, as an entrepreneurial route away from gang crime.

Critics’ Club gets young people from low-income and diverse backgrounds into theatre and the arts. They become bonafide critics, boosting their written and critical thinking skills along the way.

Career Accelerator: A careers programme helping school students from underrepresented backgrounds prepare for jobs in the tech sector.

Everybody: connecting families of kids with additional needs to have everyday fun, in everyday places, alongside everybody else.

Element is an arts programme for young people leaving care, culminating in public exhibitions. Element creatives build their wellbeing and resilience through art as they establish their adult lives.

Ally is a chatbot that gives vulnerable young people the information and tools they need to escape the cycle of homelessness.

Tranquiliti is a digital service building responsive school environments that promotes the flourishing and learning of all students.

Split Banana is a social enterprise that delivers creative relationship and sex education programmes in schools.

Lemonade is a social enterprise supporting young people on waiting lists for mental health services. Lemonade bridges the gap between the community and the clinical world.

Square Circle helps employers create belonging. Their consultants, aged between 16 and 25, design and deliver bespoke content, workshops, and reverse mentoring for people already in the world of work — all on the theme of identity.

Curiosity Club is an after school club for disadvantaged young people in London, Curiosity Club connects students to professionals they’re curious about.

The Visionaries aims to become the modern Rite of Passage, offering young people from across the country a journey of self-discovery.

Bloom 6 recruits, place, and trains talented learning mentors in alternative provision schools, to enable students to flourish.

Settle is a homelessness charity that trains and supports vulnerable young people to move out of temporary housing and into their first home.

Read more about all of our ventures and their work at yearhere.org/ventures.