YOUNG PEOPLE'S EMPLOYABILITY AT MORTAL FOOLS
Our dynamic young people’s employability offer is designed to empower young people with the skills, confidence, and connections to progress on their employability journey.
On this page you’ll find information about our current offer, on-demand content and resources for young people, and information about our interventions and commissionable activity. After reading, if you would like to find out more about our young people’s employability work, or if you’d like to commission Mortal Fools to run an employability-enhancing intervention, please email [email protected]
Note: We currently don’t offer work experience – however we hope to offer this in the future. If you would like to gain experience in theatre making, events, and creative industries, and are aged 13-19 years old, then our Mortal Fools Ensemble Young Company programme might be a good fit.
On this page you’ll find information about our current offer, on-demand content and resources for young people, and information about our interventions and commissionable activity. After reading, if you would like to find out more about our young people’s employability work, or if you’d like to commission Mortal Fools to run an employability-enhancing intervention, please email [email protected]
Note: We currently don’t offer work experience – however we hope to offer this in the future. If you would like to gain experience in theatre making, events, and creative industries, and are aged 13-19 years old, then our Mortal Fools Ensemble Young Company programme might be a good fit.
OUR CREATIVE APPROACH TO EMPLOYABILITY
We use creative thinking, our co-creation practice, practical fun activities, and social science models as the framework to support young people’s 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.
Mortal Fools offer young people the opportunity to explore their creative skills, share ideas with their peers, and develop their understanding of employer expectations and skills while enhancing their knowledge about how to successfully transition into work. For those uncertain of what may come next, or where to start, to be offered a safe space with quality support to broaden their horizons is invaluable. And for the young people who have engaged in their employability programmes, the experience has been highly impactful.
- Vicki Clarke, Employment Partnership Coordinator,
Northumberland County Council
We provide holistic support and offer various types of interventions that cultivate confidence and support individuals; meeting them where they are at on their employability journey, acknowledging their needs, and understanding their aspirations - whilst developing their career, interpersonal, and life skills.
Our primary focus is to engage young people who face 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, lack of opportunity, lack of transparency, or unhelpful stereotypes and limiting assumptions.
Our primary focus is to engage young people who face 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, lack of opportunity, lack of transparency, or unhelpful stereotypes and limiting assumptions.
Our young people’s employability work:
- Feeds into regional and hyperlocal economic activity, forming part of a high-impact, targeted, and person-centric workforce development programme.
- Moves individuals closer to being workforce-ready and enhances their capabilities.
- Develops interpersonal skills, confidence, self-management skills, decision-making abilities, and workplace resilience.
- Is person-centric, flexible, and needs-focused. We work with small groups to appropriately prioritise the needs of our participants.
- Supports 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.
- Provides interventions that engage, enable, and empower individuals to progress into next-stage employability programmes that might target specific skills, sectors, or routes into roles.
- Engages young people who don’t know what they want to do or what they are capable of, and who haven’t had the space or opportunity to experiment.
- Holds space using creative methodology and social science models to explore personal development in a fun, practical, and non-confronting way.
- Demystifies routes into employment and career pathways into creative sectors in the region.
- Provides the opportunity to achieve a qualification (where appropriate) via Arts Award.
- Makes introductions to referral partners, relevant support organisations, artists/creative professionals, and creative organisations.
- Provides a space to engage with specific art forms and creativity for the first time.
- Provides a space for socially isolated young people to meet and engage with like-minded peers in a supportive environment.
- Funnels participants into other opportunities, projects, and programmes at Mortal Fools.
- Is a forum for young people to explore and express their thoughts, feelings, and insights connected to employability and entering the workforce - and through the creation of digital creative content, platforms their voices, needs, and lived experiences to decision makers and employers.
CURRENT YOUNG PEOPLE'S EMPLOYABILITY OFFER
We support young people’s employability in the following ways:
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FREE Employability Content & Downloadable ResourcesWe have a range of free resources designed to support parents, carers, teachers, lecturers, and youth workers to have meaningful conversations with young people about their prospective career journeys and creative careers.
This bank of digital content is ever evolving, all FREE, and includes activity sheets, webinars, resources, animations by young people, creative sector advice, and downloadable content that can be integrated into young people’s employability-enhancing activity or utilised during a careers week in school/college/education. |
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CONNECT: Future Ready Future Ready is a creative approach to young people’s employability and skills development. We provide intensive and intentional employability-enhancing support for young people aged 14-30 - and through our various Future Ready creative intervention models, we unlock young people’s potential, support their employability, and facilitate skills development.
We are open to connecting with organisations, youth settings, and funders who may be interested in commissioning young people’s employability interventions. |
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CONNECT: Creative Futures Creative Futures is a one-day commissionable session for young people aged 14-18, using creativity to explore employability and their future, and to boost confidence. In addition to working with Mortal Fools practitioners, participants work with a guest artist to explore their career hopes, dreams, and fears through an art form (such as music, animation, or visual arts).
We are open to connecting with organisations, youth settings, and funders who may be interested in commissioning or sponsoring one-day interventions. |
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Young CONNECT - Commissionable Employability InterventionsYoung CONNECT is an adapted version of our professional development programme, CONNECT - which offers dynamic and practical training for organisations and teams.
It combines techniques from our creative practice, business development theory, social sciences, and neuroscience - as well as our rich experience of supporting a wide variety of young people. |
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Creative Careers Talks & Career Fairs We regularly support young people’s careers and employability events in Northumberland and the North East. Through these events, we aim to create meaningful connections, signpost to employability support and resources, and facilitate conversations about careers, employability, and skills development.
Our team is especially committed to providing valuable insights into the creative industries and other sectors - helping young people to envision and achieve their career aspirations, and demystifying career pathways! We currently support annual and termly events ran by:
If you would like to invite us to a careers event, to support a careers week or day, or to deliver a careers talk, drop us an email via [email protected] and lets chat! We also have two pre-recorded careers talks that you can use in your setting: |
RECENT EXAMPLES OF MORTAL FOOLS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S EMPLOYABILITY WORK
Ongoing:
- 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 projects, we support young people’s skills development, youth leadership skills, and employability.
- We support Mortal Fools Young Volunteers and Young Trustees in their personal development.
- We support early career staff members at Mortal Fools with CPD training and skills sharing.
- We offer CPD training to freelance artists and youth workers in the North East - and nationally via Company Three's 'Running a Youth Theatre' programme.
- We attend Northumberland and North East school and college careers days, give creative careers presentations, and host 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 the wider 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.
One-off interventions:
- Commissioned by North East Combined Authority to pilot a year-long CONNECT: Future Ready programme across April 2024-April 2025 - consisting of 5 interventions, workshops, and youth employability consultation which supported and engaged 111 young people.
- 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 week-long employability intervention for The King’s 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 the National Citizen Service programme in 2022 by running presentation skills sessions for 250+ young people.
- Hosted two digital summer internships in 2021 through Leeds University.
CONNECT OR WORK WITH MORTAL FOOLS
If you would like to find out more about our young people’s employability work, or if you’d like to commission Mortal Fools to run an employability-enhancing intervention, please email [email protected]
