Impact Bond: The Advance Programme
Stage of development: Complete
Policy sector: Employment and training
Intervention: The IF pilot projects aim to prevent young people from becoming NEET, or support those already NEET to re-engage with education, training and employment. Interventions display a wide diversity in terms of participant age range, in and out of school provision and the balance between one to one and group work. Some programmes are built around participation on a structured programme or course. Despite these differences, there are also commonalities between projects including: time spent on initial marketing, recruitment and engagement; an intense initial process of working with each participant to achieve a positive shift in ‘mind-set’; a more extended period of personal and skills development and the encouragement of mental resilience in dealing with challenges and dif culties faced; and an ongoing process of goal setting and progression facilitation.Fully integrated support programme with a flexible, non-uniform delivery model. School-based delivery provides Level 1 and 2 coaching, family counselling, extracurricular activities and work experience tasters linked to supported progression onto apprenticeships. A strong focus on embedding literacy and numeracy skills within vocational training, supplemented by small tutorial groups. Targeted engagement outside schools. Delivered on agency premises and at outreach venues.
Start of service provision: 2012-04
Total investment commitment currency: GBP
Total investment commitment: 3000000
Total investment commitment (USD): 4738984.709
Maximum potential outcome payment: 3400000 GBP
Maximum potential outcome payment (USD): 5370849.337
Target population: Young people between the ages of 14 and 24, who are NEET or at risk of becoming NEET in ‘hot- spots’ within the City of Birmingham
Actual number of service users or beneficiaries engaged: 2900
Notes: Referral Route: Referrals through schools, Connexions Service, Youth Offending Services and community networks.

Additional assessments: Qualitative assessments of early implementation (2014) and delivery in the final year of operation (2016) were carried out to identify, for project partners, the key issues that the pilot projects have encountered in their first years, as well as assess how effectively the pilots have operated after three years of delivery. Furthermore, impact evaluation was carried out using survey and administrative participant data against a matched sample of non-participants to determine the Social Return on Investment (2018).