Talent Scouts triumph with ‘The Meet Up’

The Talent Scouts celebrate. Photograph: Rochelle Jeanine

Hackney’s squadron of young Talent Scouts, part of the London-wide youth employment scheme Talent Match, have been recognised as experts in their field at the organisation’s first anniversary awards.

The team was awarded the prize for Best Youth-Led Event for their 2014 project The Meet Up, a job fair with several unusual selling points, including being held out on the Hackney skyline in the Dalston Roof Park.

“We have employers and young people together, and we put a twist on the events,” says Monique Smith, one of the 12 Talent Scouts to share in the award. “We have artists and music – innovative things – instead of just a boring event.”

Actor and musician Bashy at the Talent Match awards. Photograph: Rochelle Jeanine

Actor and musician Bashy, well known for his role in the film Adulthood and for his 2007 anti-racism single “Black Boys”, provided the soundtrack to an afternoon of employer pitches, networking opportunities and panel discussions, with 100 long-term unemployed people aged 18-24 in attendance alongside apprenticeship providers and employers.

A second Hook Up event was held in December on the Pembury Estate, in collaboration with the housing charity Peabody and the advocacy organisation the Black Training and Enterprise Group.

Smith is glad her team’s work on these events has been recognised: “I feel as a youth-led partnership we put in the work and we actually meet the needs of the young people that we work with.”

In its first year, the Talent Match project has helped 87 young people from across Hackney find a job. But the organisation’s work does not end once the young people have signed their employment contracts, with those individuals projected to receive as much as five years’ support tailored to their own career paths, ambitions
and skills.

The fact that the Scouts are the same age group as the people they are working with also helps understanding, in Smith’s view. “We help them find a job, a job that they want to do; not just a job that will help them now, but will help them in the long run,” she explains.

This approach is a key factor in the project’s appeal. “It shows the young people that we are interested in helping them get into a career. And it shows them that we’re not just there for the short term – any support or advice that they need, we’re always there to keep them guided.”

Talent Match is also providing employers with access to a useful untapped resource, observes Smith: “Young people in Hackney are really articulate and they really have a drive; they might not know what they want to do but when they get into the field they’re passionate.”

Talent Match is a UK-wide initiative set up by the Big Lottery Fund. Its work in Hackney is supported by Hackney Council for Voluntary Services (HCVS), an umbrella group for voluntary and charitable organisations in the borough.

Beth Bolitho, Youth Programmes Manager at HCVS, points out that while jobs are a key focus of the project, education can also play an important role.

“A lot of young people, particularly those with experience of homelessness, have been at university and then they drop out because of their life circumstances.

“Things get overwhelming and they just never manage to get back into it. So it might be that the project helps them to get back into university.

“We don’t rule anything out. It’s all about fulfilling the needs of the young person – what they want to do.”

This article is published as part of a Community Partnership between the Hackney Citizen and Hackney CVS.