What Works for Children’s Social Care (WWCSC) is seeking proposals for projects that aim to increase educational attainment for young people with a social worker in further education (FE) settings. This could be further education colleges, sixth form colleges, or any other FE setting, and could consider vocational courses, GCSE resits, or A-levels.
Young people with a social worker experience challenges throughout their educational journey, including in further education. As a result of receiving, on average, lower GCSE grades than their peers, and the government’s reforms requiring young people to resit their GCSEs in Maths and English if they do not pass them the first time, young people with a social worker are also represented in further education settings. Further education as a whole is also underserved in terms of the amount of high quality causal research evidence and evaluation supporting it, compared to other parts of the education landscape.
By funding new independent evaluations of interventions, WWCSC hopes to expand the evidence base around what works to increase education attainment for young people with a social worker in further education settings.
The programme:
- Can be specifically designed and developed for young people with a social worker
- Can be an existing programme that has been tailored for young people with a social worker
- Can be an existing programme, that is able to provide evidence that it is beneficial for the educational attainment of young people with a social worker
- Should focus on young people in further education settings
Proposals should outline the organisation’s idea for a project that will positively impact young people with a social worker and vulnerable children more widely. We expect to fund the development and piloting of up to two new projects, in collaboration with the Department for Education (DfE). Programmes will be implemented and piloted throughout the academic year 2021/22 and evaluated by an independent evaluator appointed by WWCSC.
Applications should be submitted to WWCSC by Friday 30 April, 2021. For more information and the application form, see the information sheet.