The Social Mobility Foundation: Supporting students virtually
The Federation is a community of digital and social innovators — Next in our guest blog series is Federation member Social Mobility Foundation. Sarah Crossan from the Foundation introduces us to the organisation and its experience of pivoting during the pandemic, ensuring they could continue to deliver vital support for young people.
At the Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) we aim to make a practical improvement in social mobility for young people. We support ambitious young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, by giving them the networks, connections and opportunities that they are unable to get from their schools or families.
In the UK in 2020, your potential and aspirations are still not the dominant predictors of your outcomes. We like to think that if you work hard and do well, you can achieve your ambitions. However, the jobs your parents had, the school you attended and the area you grew up in play a huge part in where you will end up. You are 24 times more likely to become a doctor if you have a parent who is a doctor, and 17 times more likely to become a lawyer if you have a parent who is a lawyer. Many of our students are interested in medicine, law and other highly prestigious sectors. They have the academic capability, but without knowing people in the industry, face numerous barriers to fulfilling their potential.
As well as offering students professional mentors, our support usually comes in the form of multiple events throughout students’ school and college holidays. From workshops about applying to university and doing well in admissions tests, to arranging work experience in renowned employers across a number of sectors, we spend a lot of time and effort making sure students receive first hand insight into the career they’re interested in.
Like many other similar charities and organisations, as of mid-March, we have not been able to deliver our programmes as we usually would, and so we pivoted the programme to ensure that our students can still be supported in the areas where they need it most. Our programme is now available virtually to students, and has remained a place where they have the opportunity to hear from leading employers, professionals and people they can build connections with. With the world moving online at an ever-increasing rate, sped up by the arrival of Covid-19, it was essential for us to make this move to offering more virtual support.
The impact of this has come with unexpected benefits, and moving our programme online has been a success in many ways. Rather than only taking place in the cities where our offices are based, our workshops and webinars are now available to students wherever they live in the UK, from the Scottish Highlands, to those on the Cornish coast. A greater number of young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have had the world of big businesses and employers opened up to them, and have been given information from employees on what they need to do to be a success in their preferred industry.
Although there are elements of face to face interaction that we can never fully recreate online, and we are keen to deliver this activity as soon as the situation allows, by supporting students virtually there have been advantages as well as the anticipated challenges. We look forward to building on the lessons we have learnt over this period so that we can support more young people on our programme, whether that be virtually or face to face.
Thank you to Sarah Crossan from the Social Mobility Foundation for contributing to our guest blog series.
