About SOFEA

SOFEA is an education and training charity enabling disadvantaged young people to (re)engage with learning, skills training and work. We support young people aged 16-25 at our Didcot and Milton Keynes sites running FareShare food redistribution operations across the Thames Valley and South Midlands. Young people are referred by schools and colleges, pupil referral units, social services, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and the police. Many are at risk of becoming long-term NEET, leading to a life of poor qualifications, low skills, insecure work or unemployment.

About the Project

The interests and capabilities of people living in disadvantaged communities are easily squashed by systems that favour wealth, education and social standing. Whilst opportunities are not equal or equitable, SOFEA successfully supports learners and trainees from different ethnic backgrounds through its academic, training, wellbeing and social programmes. Our work with partners helps to progress young people into further education, volunteering, apprenticeships and full employment, improving physical health and mental wellbeing whilst developing and strengthening social cohesion. 

Whilst our young people have common issues and needs, they support each other and work together without stigma or judgement.

With many young people coming to us having grown up in adversity, we acknowledge the complexities, conflicts and disruptions of their family, self-belief and personal aspirations. We hold the emotional wellbeing of each young person by building trust and providing mentoring and coaching within safe places across a range of activities and specialist programmes.

SOFEA’s specialist support workers help young people to address and overcome deep-rooted emotions and responses in an empathic and sustained way, improving their ability to engage in positive behaviours and improve critical thinking skills. In turn, they become less disruptive, more engaged and positively involved with their education, training and social activities. Our young people attend regularly, make academic progress and improve across all social, behavioural and emotional markers.

Monitoring and evaluating success

We use Impact Tracker to monitor and evaluate the progress and achievements of each young person, noting classes attended, exams taken, courses completed, qualifications achieved, extracurricular activities participated in. 

All therapeutic records are maintained using the confidential NHS RIO system. 

We track the wellbeing of young people using WEMWBS (Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale). 

These systems provide quantitative and qualitative data that can be collated and used by our teams to evaluate the effectiveness of certain interventions for each cohort and individual. Where possible, adaptations to each programme delivery can be made to optimise the outcomes for each learner and trainee.

These data can be used to relate the number moving from NEET to EET. Such data is captured, tracked, evaluated and presented as a percentage of the cohort at the end of the programme.

We expect to support 390 young people through our employability programme.

Our use of funds

The money raised will help to fund 6 specialist support workers in our education, employability and wellbeing programmes