Moving on Up in Brent: Funding opportunity

Since 2014 over £1.3 million has been invested in research and policy work; practical employment support for young black men; and work with employers. A major strand of work in Phase 2 of the initiative is to establish collective impact partnerships in two local authority areas.   

Within the MoU programme, ‘young’ means age 16 to 24 and ‘black’ includes people from black British, black African, black Caribbean, other black and mixed black ethnic groups.

The available funding detailed below relates to work in Brent.

The initiative partners have been working with Brent council, the Department of Work and Pensions, and local partner organisations to identify what can be done to improve employment for young black men in Brent. The partnership highlighted three issues which were holding back young black men from raising their potential in the labour market. These were:

• the lack of pathways into good jobs with prospects
• the lack of mentors and positive role models
• difficulties engaging employers in discussions about recruitment and progression barriers for young black men 

In response, a Collective Impact Action Plan is being developed and will be finalised in July 2019.  The plan will seek to deliver the following new services to address the above issues:

Priority 1: Pathways for Young Black Men to jobs with prospects.

Priority 2: Moving on Up Mentoring Programme

Priority 3 : Employer Engagement.  

Applications are now being sought from suitably experienced organisations, to deliver the proposed work as outlined in the specifications for each priority area (as detailed in Appendix A below).  We expect applicant organisations to have:

• a track record of supporting young black men into employment
• an in-depth understanding of the barriers to accessing good quality employment faced by young black men in Brent
• experience of working with employers to generate job opportunities for young black men

Details of the specifications for each priority area (Appendix A) can be downloaded here

For more information about the specifications and priorities for Brent contact Paul Hadfield on 07741841336 or email  paul.hadfield@brent.gov.uk.

For more information about Moving on Up  please contact  Liz Mackie from the Black Training and Enterprise Group email liz@sharedenterprise.org.uk.