The UPP Foundation, a charitable trust created by University Partnerships Programme (UPP) to help tackle the biggest issues facing the higher education sector across the UK, has today announced a four-year, £100k grant to The Prince’s Trust that will help young people access higher education. The grant builds on the support given to The Prince’s Trust by UPP prior to the establishment of the UPP Foundation, under which almost 400 young people benefited from UPP/Prince’s Trust programmes.
The UPP Foundation’s annual donation of £25k per year for four years will fund The Prince’s Trust’s Progression Mentoring scheme – an extensive volunteer network that provides one-to-one support for up to one year to young people looking to move into employment, education or training. On average it costs £250 to provide Progression Mentoring to each young person, so this support from the UPP Foundation could provide life-changing support to 100 young people each year.
The four-year partnership announcement comes as The Prince’s Trust Youth Index reveals a worrying trend in the overall wellbeing of young people in the UK. The Index saw a fall to its lowest level since the study’s inception in 2009. The findings suggest that more than a quarter of young people do not feel in control of their lives and that a crisis of confidence in their own abilities and future prospects is preventing them from realising their true potential.
Equally shocking is that many young people feel trapped by their situation with almost a fifth saying they do not have the ability to change their circumstances if they wanted to. The report indicates that this trend is worse for young people who are not in employment, education or training, who are more likely to be unhappy and lacking in self-belief, than those who are.
Speaking about the grant Dr Paul Marshall, Chair of the Board of Trustees at the UPP Foundation, said: “One of the key goals of the UPP Foundation is helping to erode the barriers many young people face to accessing higher education. The Prince’s Trust Youth Index makes for sober reading and provides a strong motivation for us to develop this partnership further. The most effective thing we can do to empower young people is to help them develop the skills and coping mechanisms they need – which is what our contributions will fund via Progression Mentoring. We will work together to help young people identify goals and targets to work towards, empowering them to make their own decisions about their development and signposting them to other organisations for support.”
Ben Marson, Director of Corporate Partnerships at The Prince’s Trust, said: “We are very proud to partner with the UPP Foundation. The Prince’s Trust has set ambitious objectives for the next few years: we aim, in particular, to provide training and career opportunities to 10,000 young people over the next three years. At this exciting time for The Trust, we are grateful to the UPP Foundation for their ongoing and enthusiastic support.”
