The project sought to engage participants from inner city areas intending to, or already taking further educational qualifications at school leaving age. We wanted to reach out to and continue to partner with colleges and include them in our consortium in the West Midlands area and to add value to their existing academic qualification programmes with realistic but exciting opportunities for students to complete work placement and gain real workplace skills. In turn this would support engagement and retention to their own programmes with students seeing value in overseas opportunities and managing as employees in an environment away from the routine of their own homes as well as developing skills related to the qualifications that they are working towards in the United Kingdom, we wanted participants to have support to develop an understanding the importance of independent living, and to develop the confidence and resilience to sustain educational opportunities which would enable them to actively progress into the world of work. By spending time away from their home environments we also wanted to give them the opportunity to develop language, resilience and timekeeping skills, team work, money management, independence and logistical skills.
We identified a need for students in local inner city areas to have access to wider career planning opportunities and to broaden their expectations in relation to realistic career choices and expectations for their lives. We wanted to work with those students who were considering their future career choices and embarking upon further education and to support those decisions, ensure that they did not limit themselves unnecessarily and give them access to those workplaces where they could see wider opportunities. This included giving them the chances to see and to show them potential life choices beyond their existing experience and knowledge and also how and where their career choices could take their lives beyond their current geographical constraints. We aimed to give them a safe way to broaden their life experience and prospective goal setting, gain real world experience in their chosen subjects for further education, and to also challenge their perceptions around intended career aspirations and develop their own personal confidence and trust in themselves and those choices. With existing partnership and employer contacts in Spain, Portugal and Netherlands, the project sought to utilise these networks and offer these life changing experiences to participants with a view to giving them advantages in their future career choices. They would be able to talk about the experience gained, lessons and skills learnt and their ability to adapt in the workplace, take on new challenges and integrate as a valuable member of a team.