Young People’s Employability at Mortal Fools
Our dynamic young people’s employability projects are designed to empower young people with the skills, confidence and connections to progress on their employability journey. Whilst this area is a new strand of work at Mortal Fools, it builds on the success of our creative interventions, young people’s projects and employability commissions from the likes of Northumbrian Water, North East Combined Authority, Princes Trust and NCS.
Mortal Fools employability programmes provide holistic support that cultivates confidence and supports individuals, meeting them where they are in their employability journey, acknowledging their needs and understanding their aspirations whilst developing their career, interpersonal and life skills. Our programmes are a targeted response to the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic and mental health crisis on young people’s lives in the present and future.
We have two main employability projects – click on the project pages below to read more about them or continue reading on this page for an overview of our Young People’s Employability work at Mortal Fools.
Current Projects
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CONNECT: Future Ready
Pilot project commissioned by North East Combined Authority funded by the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund supporting economically inactive and/or socially isolated young people aged 16-30 years old on their employability journey.
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CONNECT: Creative Futures
Pilot project supported by North East Combined Authority, the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, Asda Foundation and Arts Council England demystifying career pathways for young people into the creative industries and championing creativity as an important employability skill.
More information coming soon! |
Practitioner and Coordinator at Mortal Fools in a youth theatre session. Photo Credit: Von Fox
Young People’s Employability Overview
Our primary focus is to engage young people aged 14-30 years old facing some type of barrier in their employability journey– the barrier may be connected to various intersectional factors: geographical location, mental health challenges, neurodivergence, socio-economic, socio-emotional, self-perception, social isolation, lack of experience, lack of confidence, skills gap, lack of appropriate support or lack of opportunity. In the creative industries, barriers may be around the lack of transparency of entry points into specific roles or sectors, accessing opportunities and sustainable paid work or unhelpful stereotypes and limiting assumptions (e.g. there are no jobs in the arts – there are lots of jobs!).
We use creative thinking, our co-creation practice, practical fun activities and social science models as the framework to support personal and professional development. It is a proven methodology that unlocks growth mindset, whilst helping to develop competencies and capabilities in a non-confronting way. It is also a powerful means of learning and establishing new neurological pathways and behaviours, whilst increasing self-awareness.
Our practical and fun programmes support young people and are an empowering step towards being workplace ready. They provide opportunities to meet like-minded peers, try new things and engage with creative professionals in an inclusive and supportive environment.
Our employability programmes can enable and empower young people who have found more traditional employability interventions unhelpful. We can be the confidence-boosting intervention young people need, before engaging with another employability programme.
Our primary focus is to engage young people aged 14-30 years old facing some type of barrier in their employability journey– the barrier may be connected to various intersectional factors: geographical location, mental health challenges, neurodivergence, socio-economic, socio-emotional, self-perception, social isolation, lack of experience, lack of confidence, skills gap, lack of appropriate support or lack of opportunity. In the creative industries, barriers may be around the lack of transparency of entry points into specific roles or sectors, accessing opportunities and sustainable paid work or unhelpful stereotypes and limiting assumptions (e.g. there are no jobs in the arts – there are lots of jobs!).
We use creative thinking, our co-creation practice, practical fun activities and social science models as the framework to support personal and professional development. It is a proven methodology that unlocks growth mindset, whilst helping to develop competencies and capabilities in a non-confronting way. It is also a powerful means of learning and establishing new neurological pathways and behaviours, whilst increasing self-awareness.
Our practical and fun programmes support young people and are an empowering step towards being workplace ready. They provide opportunities to meet like-minded peers, try new things and engage with creative professionals in an inclusive and supportive environment.
Our employability programmes can enable and empower young people who have found more traditional employability interventions unhelpful. We can be the confidence-boosting intervention young people need, before engaging with another employability programme.
“The Mortal Fools Team are like a warm hug to work with. Nothing was a problem. They ran a ‘Creative Futures: Confidence & Communication’ workshop at a new careers event; they were personable, adaptable and entertaining. The students and schools got so much from their workshop, it was noted as a Top 3 from the event with many saying it was engaging, thought-provoking and that they gained valuable skills for employment and education- especially more confidence!
We won’t hesitate to contact Mortal Fools again for our next Young Citizens Work Experience Event and we would encourage other companies to reach out to them – they bring something different to work experience weeks and careers events!”
- Amber Swift, Northumbrian Water
Our programmes:
- Feed into regional and hyperlocal economic activity forming part of a high-impact, targeted and person-centric workforce development programme.
- Move individuals closer to being workforce-ready and enhance their capabilities.
- Focus on developing interpersonal skills, confidence, self-management skills, decision-making abilities and workplace resilience.
- Are person-centric, flexible and needs-focused – we work with small groups to appropriately prioritise the needs of our participants.
- Support a wide variety of young people including those with intersectional needs, classified as NEET (Not in education, employment, or training), neurodivergent and/or socially isolated to feel confident and capable as their authentic selves.
- Provide interventions that engage, enable and empower individuals to progress into next-stage employability programmes that might target specific skills, sectors or routes into roles.
- Engage young people who don’t know what they want to do, and what they are capable of and haven’t had the space or opportunity to experiment.
- Hold space using creative methodology and social science models to explore personal development in a fun, practical and non-confronting way.
- Demystify routes into employment and career pathways into creative sectors in the region.
- Provide the opportunity to achieve a qualification (where appropriate) via Arts Award.
- Make introductions to referral partners, relevant support organisations, artists/creative professionals and creative organisations.
- Provide a space to engage with specific art forms and creativity for the first time.
- Provide a space for socially isolated young people to meet and engage with like-minded peers in a supportive environment.
- Feed participants into other opportunities, projects and programmes at Mortal Fools.
A young person gaining their Discover Arts Award and presenting a project at NCEA Dukes Secondary School. Photo Credit Von Fox
Examples of Mortal Fools young people’s employability work
Intervention work:
- Supported Northumbrian Water’s Young Citizens Programme in 2024 by running communication and confidence-boosting sessions for 400+ young people.
- Ran a two-day Workplace Experience intervention for Northumberland College students with intersectional needs and low confidence in 2024.
- Ran a weeklong employability intervention for Princes Trust Get Started Programme in 2023 for young people aged 16-30 interested in getting into the Creative Industries.
- Ran presentation and communication skills training for the annual Newcastle University Graduate Ambassador programme, supporting newly employed young people, as part of their induction.
- Supported NCS programme in 2022 by running presentation skills sessions for 250+ young people.
- Hosted two digital Summer Internships in 2021 via Leeds University.
Continuous:
- Mortal Fools annual Peer Facilitator programme gives young people paid work experience within the creative sector in a supportive, enriching environment. This is usually their first-ever job.
- Across our young people’s creative interventions, Ensemble Young Company and youth theatre, we support young people’s skills development, youth leadership skills and employability.
- Supporting Mortal Fools Young Volunteers and Young Trustees in their personal development.
- Supporting early career staff members across their employment with Mortal Fools.
- Attending Northumberland and North East school and college careers days, giving creative careers presentations and hosting creative pop-ups at community events.
- We are regularly commissioned via our CONNECT training programme to run one-off, open-access, skills-based workshops for freelancers, community organisations and in the youth sector.
- We are regularly commissioned via our CONNECT training programme to run professional development training for businesses and their employees and community organisations and their volunteers.
“We recognise the barriers that young people can face into employment – it’s a challenging time to be a young person; these innovative employability programmes from Mortal Fools will inspire creativity, build confidence, and foster wellbeing to empower individuals to take steps towards employment and their future career goals. We are proud to support them.”
-Vicki Clarke - Northumberland County Council, Employment Partnership Coordinator
Example of a creative animation created as part of an employability intervention:
In October 2023, Team Mortal Fools and Princes Trust worked together to deliver Get Started With: Performance & Creativity. Across a week, we worked with 12 brilliant young people – the group participated in some of our CONNECT training, engaged in some actor and performance training, devised creative content with professional theatre makers and creatives, worked with our Production Manager on Tech, lighting, and staging, achieved an Arts Award AND worked with animator Lily Kroese to create this piece!
Work with Mortal Fools
If you would like to find out more about our young people’s employability work, if you’d like to commission Mortal Fools to run an employability-enhancing intervention or session for young people or if you would like us to attend a careers day or event, please email [email protected]
