Talent Match Humber

About Talent Match

Talent Match was a £108 million nationwide programme funded by the National Lottery Community Fund between 2014-2018. The aim was to support young people aged 18 to 24 who needed extra support to help them along their path to employment.

Talent Match targeted young people who were considered furthest away from the labour market. This included long-term unemployed young people who had complex lives and faced multiple barriers to employment. Our partnerships also carried out outreach work to identify, engage and support so called ‘hidden youth’ who were young people neither receiving benefits nor engaged in employment, education or training.

Talent Match was built on a youth-centred approach which placed the wishes and aspirations of young people first before those of the services that were there to support them. Our local partnerships worked with young people to stabilise their lives, support their aspirations and equip them with the skills and attitudes that would help them to take their first steps towards employment. In addition to practical support, the Talent Match partnerships seeked to improve local policy and practice around support for young people.

Key success factors that have emerged from the Talent Match programme are:

• It has supported 26,000 young people, with 7,600 of these securing employment.
• The personalised, individual nature of support: there was no standard approach, partnerships did different things according to need, their skills and what young people requested.
• Participation in Talent Match was voluntary and our partnerships worked flexibly with young people on their terms, for as long as needed, without penalising for missed appointments or setbacks in progression.

The programme successes are now acknowledged more widely, with the Talent Match programme recently recognised as one of the 22 promising practices in Europe in the field of youth employment by the European Commission – the only programme/project from the UK.
This is a great testament to the work of the Talent Match partnerships and their continued commitment to co-production, which set Talent Match apart from most youth employment initiatives in Europe.

Young people told us that they felt listened to and valued within the programme. They appreciated having someone, usually a mentor, who took time to listen, who cared about their situation and gave them confidence that they were not alone. The proportion of young people with a ‘very high’ score on life satisfaction almost tripled during their time on Talent Match. This is an important factor as it enabled the young person to have the confidence to begin their employment journey.