Insight: A charity on the frontline in Gloucestershire
“We are worried what we will find when the lights come back on” is what charities told The Raikes Journal in the darkest days of the Covid-19 pandemic. They were right to be concerned.
Dear reader,
Welcome to our first edition of the week.
Today we follow a particularly popular trilogy of unrelated stories which led our three editions last week.
We touched on everything from a £30 million investment to help tackle Gloucetershire’s housing crisis on Monday, the testing of a digital portal which could provide SME’s with access to £550 million of funding on Thursday, and on Friday we launched our Ones to Watch series.
The latter saw us talk to aviation training firm boss Lee Woodward, of Skyborne, about growth, the future of its home - Gloucestershire Airport - and whether the airport’s sale means any investment will happen elsewhere from now on.
Today we thought those who continue to fight the good fight for apprenticeships will be interested to know there are figures showing their popularity could well overtake degrees very soon.
And then there is our article on a simply incredible charity - Young Gloucestershire.
Anyone in the third sector will know the challenges have only got bigger since the Covid-19 pandemic, in terms of the numbers they need to support but also the financial challenges too.
The recent Budget and the impact of the rise in National Insurance contributions on charities was documented by us elsewhere (see: Charities in Gloucestershire face a bleak 2025), and Young Gloucestershire is one of the many still working out what that will mean for its services.
Young Gloucestershire supports our county’s 11 to 25-year-olds on all sorts of levels - but demand continues to rise forwhat it provides. We were lucky enough to get up close in an effort to try and understand what is going on, and how your business can help too.
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We hope you have a great week.
Andrew Merrell (editor).
If you have a story, an issue, a news item, a charity or an interview you want us to write about or investigate, challenge the powers that be on, then please email me: andrew.merrell@raikesjournal.co.uk.
* The Raikes Journal is a community interest company. Everything you read by us is made possible by our incredible Founding Partners: QuoLux, Willans LLP, Gloucestershire College, Merrell People and Randall & Payne, our sponsors Hartpury University and Hartpury College, our Founding Members and wonderful paying subscribers.
If you subscribe and invite friends to The Raike Journal you will earn rewards towards complimentary membership (three referrals will get you one month, 10 will get you three months and 25 will win you six months).
If you upgrade to paid you’ll be part of this CIC too. We are dedicated to delivering quality journalism for Gloucestershire, to championing the county, in particular its businesses, charities, education and training providers, and to helping create an even stronger community. If you upgrade to paid you will be able to see past the paywalls often put on our second and third email editions of the week, that lock all our archive after two weeks and lock our rolling Top 100 Businesses in Gloucestershire series. You will be able to comment on our stories too. You’ll be helping make this CIC sustainable to deliver more original articles on our county.
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Your briefing notes…
💷 Cheltenham-based cyber-focused group CyNam has revealed it has won funding from Innovate UK to help it attract more investment into the county. According to a recent report, despite having the highest concentration of cybersecurity businesses outside of London it attracts less than one per cent of the UK’s cyber-focused investment. CyNam says its new Cyber Local project will lay the foundations for a specialised Angel Investor Network aimed at ‘transforming the investment landscape’ for early-stage cybersecurity and emerging technology businesses in and around Gloucestershire.
💷 Ecotricity, the Stroud-based self-styled green energy business, is set for a windfall. Rival Good Energy, the Wiltshire-headquartered energy firm started by another Stroud resident, Juliet Davenport, in 1999, is reportedly on the verge of being sold to United Arab Emirates firm Dubai-headquartered Eysasoft, which describes itself as a smart grid technology company. Good Energy has been valued at £99.4 million. The deal was announced to the Stock Market today (27 January). Ecotricity is believed to be the largest shareholder in Good Energy with 26.2 per cent of its shares.
🚴 Cycling enthusiasts and fans of sports nutrition supplements might be interested to learn that a county-based business has been signed up to supply legendary world-leading cycling team INEOS Grenadiers. Hardwicke-based Nutrition X will supply the elite cycling team, formerly the world-beating Team Sky, for the coming year. It already supplies supplements to the likes of Ipswich Town FC, Sheffield Wednesday FC and rugby clubs such as Gloucester, Munster Rugby, Bath and England Rugby League.
🪟 Engineering and manufacturing firm Roots Systems has bought Spinnaker Works in Gloucester, near Hempsted, a 95,000 sq ft office and factory facility on a four-and-a-half-acre site - and an investment of £10 million. Currently based at Upper Mills Industrial Estate, Stonehouse. The new office and factory premises will allow the business to move its entire operations under one roof. Managing director Sean Swales said the move was ‘funded from our groups existing cash resources and is a huge vote of confidence in the business’. Roots manufacturers rotary-lobe compressor, blower and vacuum pump packages for process industries, both onshore and offshore.
Some diary dates for the week ahead…
Tuesday 28 January
Gill Smith, of The Business Kitchen, is due to lead this seminar called ‘How to pinpoint your ideal customer’ from 10am to 1pm at the Moreton Area Centre High Street Moreton-in-Marsh.
Wednesday 29th January 2025
Tayntons Curry Club. The ever-popular networking club continues to draw the crowds. Due to take place from noon at the Nepalese Chef, London Road, Gloucester. Cost is £26.
Marketing and sales skills for start-ups: In this dynamic 3-hour workshop, you’ll learn practical strategies to accelerate your marketing, sales efforts and activities to win more customers.Due to take place between 9.30am and 1pm at The Growth Hub, Tewkesbury.
Thursday 30 January.
Skills for Scaling: Innovative Approaches to Leadership in Cyber. Join CyNam and leadership coaches from Lead the Room for this lunchtime webinar on the skills your team and business need to scale. Find out more here.
The majority of young people are now considering an apprenticeship
New data from Gloucestershire-based UCAS suggest that for businesses looking for apprentices - the pickings should be rich. Joining up the dots might be harder to do.
Last year we stuck our neck out and said apprentices were on the verge of becoming a more popular choice than degrees. It looks like that day is edging ever closer, and a Cheltenham organisation is key to making it happen.
We arrived at our conclusion after looking at the annual report from UCAS, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, and we’ve done the same this year - with the latest data showing continued progress in the same direction.
For those championing apprentices as the ultimate way to train, and less than a month away from this year’s National Apprenticeship Week (which will be celebrated at the likes of Gloucestershire College with an apprenticeship open evening on Wednesday 26 February) this is music to their ears.
According to UCAS “fifty-nine per cent of young people in years nine to 12 are now considering an apprenticeship. Forty-two per cent choosing this route as they want to earn while they learn, while 34 per cent want to learn new skills.
“Currently, more than 40 per cent of all UCAS undergraduate applicants are interested in an apprenticeship role - about half a million potential apprentices.”
Getting those ‘potential apprentices’ to actually go down that route is another thing.
As we pointed out last year, UCAS is not just gathering data - it’s also doing its best to help employers and potential trainees' pair-up.
“Every applicant who logs into their UCAS students account (UCAS Hub), now sees the most relevant apprenticeship opportunities for them as well as degree courses.
“Students are able to search for an apprenticeship at any time throughout the year, as and when employers are hiring, with vacancies updated in real time.”
Other data underscore both the disparities in backgrounds and the incredible grit and determination of some to acquire an education no matter what.
“Last year 18,915 young adult carers applied to university or college accounting for 3.9 per cent of all UCAS applicants.
“The majority of applicants who declared they had caring responsibilities were 18 years old (11,960 applicants).”
And those individuals are the ones most likely to carry on trying to give too, judging by their choice of courses.
“The findings revealed young adult carers are 59 per cent more likely to apply to health and social care courses and 57 per cent more likely to apply to nursing and midwifery courses than applicants without caring responsibility.”
Apparently 97 per cent also told UCAS they agreed that work experience was essential for getting a place at university, an apprenticeship or a job “yet only 46 per cent of them actually gained any”.
Half a million students secured a place in higher education for this academic year - a 1.4 per cent increase compared to the last cycle.
Read more: Top 100: Apprenticeships are on course to become more popular than degrees
A charity on the frontline in Gloucestershire
“We are worried what we will find when the lights come back on” is what charities told The Raikes Journal in the darkest days of the Covid-19 pandemic. They were right to be concerned.
As the pressure on public services continues to bear down the job of looking after our most vulnerable is increasingly being picked up by the third sector, by the likes of Young Gloucestershire.
Like many charities supporting communities and individuals, it has become one of our unofficial front-line services and a reliance on meaningful relationships with the business community more vital than ever.
The charity supports young people between 11 and 25 by providing everything from someone to talk to in confidence to signposting individuals to specialist counsellors and helping navigate all of the most serious issues you can imagine and more.
It is also a place young people can learn and develop skills that will help open doors back into education, family life, work, accommodation, friendships, a place to call home and more. It is quite simply a lifeline for an increasing number.
When the ‘lights came back on post pandemic’, the picture was just as Young Gloucestershire and others had feared.
“We have noted a rise in the number of young people needing support,” said Tom Jones, head of communications for the Dockside charity.
“What we provide to start with is a safe space for young people. Not everyone has secure friendship groups or a family where they can talk about issues that are important to them.
“Teachers at school do not have time to get too involved in pastoral care. We are where they now come.
“They (the young person) might just need some practical support, or we can provide a youth worker and, if needed, we can put them in touch with a counsellor or other specialists.
“We are here to help provide a coping mechanism. We are not here to judge.”
When Raikes was lucky enough to get a guided tour of Young Gloucestershire’s headquarters, Dock Office off Commercial Road at the gateway to Gloucester Docks, almost every one of the many rooms appeared to be busy.
Underway were everything from one-to-one conversations to group sessions in what felt like an oasis of privacy and calm.
And that points to the scale of the challenge.
Jones said: “We are now getting between 100 and 150 referrals. That’s a week.”
There were 13,242 sessions delivered for young people last year, 1,255 one-to-one sessions and 3,662 group sessions and 1,713 hours spent supporting individuals outside these sessions.
“We get referrals from mental health teams, GPs, but also have young people who are not in education, training or work. Or perhaps they are caught up in things they should not be caught up in and are being exploited.
Even here, in rural Gloucestershire, gangs are a very real and present threat.
“It is all about exploiting vulnerability. It starts fairly innocuously – ‘just take this bag for me to Birmingham. Don’t look in the bag’.
“Then before they know it they are trapped and they feel like the gang owns them.
“We see this a lot where gangs move these young people to a place where they are not near their family or friends anymore – Birmingham, Bristol, Wales. The person becomes isolated, vulnerable and more prone to being exploited.
“The gangs are not stupid. It is about recruiting young people and raising them through the ranks. We try and identify the young people that’s happening to and help it stop.”
And before you assume the Gloucester address of the charity makes this all about the city, think again.
“We run services all over the county. People sometimes think these are just Cheltenham or Gloucester problems.
“The split is consistent between Cheltenham, Stroud. Gloucester has a little bit of a spike, but it is about going to where the need is.
“As a county we are wealthy, but there is poverty everywhere and mental health issues do not see boundaries like wealth or class. They can impact anyone,” said Jones, who is born and bred in the county and had a previous life working for the Manchester United Foundation as a digital manager and experience officer at Forest Green Rovers Football Club.
“The average support we deliver is for three to six months per person.
“Some of those young people that come our way we are able to triage to more suitable services, but more than 80 per cent of them we support.
“Between April 2023 and April 2024 we supported 4,700-plus - 3,600 of those were one-to-one support. That means we supplied a young worker, counsellor mentor for one hour a week.”
He added: “The young person could come from a situation in which they are vulnerable.
“But it might be something like they might have questions around gender identity and their family does not want to have that conversation.
“There might be bullying or issues around safety, drugs, alcohol or self-harm.
“We also do some work with refugees, asylum seekers.
“But at the end of the day it is simply about supporting young people in the county. The challenges are many, often quite nuanced and they can be complex.
“We will do what we can and help, be that getting them back into education if we can or into the world of work, in front of the right support or simply listening and providing them with a safe space to be themselves.”
How has the charity been able to cope?
“A lot of charities have seen a rise in demand for their services post-pandemic. We were lucky, we did not furlough staff. We were able to adapt. We did a lot on virtual services, a lot on Zoom.
“We tried to break down barriers and a close ear to the ground, so we were as ready as we could be when the pandemic ended.”
“But what is invaluable for us is support from the business community. We are lucky enough to have had some incredible support and some incredible relationships, but we are always keen to build new ones.
“The kind of help we are after is not just financial; help with training, running team-building events, teaching interview techniques, mentoring young people - that is all invaluable too.”