Can a holistic coaching and referral programme enhance well-being and employability amongst NEET youth?

In response to high and increasing rates of youth unemployment and a growing cohort of youth who are not in employment, education and training (NEET), the Basic Package of Support (BPS) for youth was developed. It takes as its starting point that young people who are disconnected from learning and earning opportunities are often in this situation because of the multiple barriers they face, arising from the structural and multifaceted nature of poverty. Furthermore, when they try to access services to help them overcome these challenges, they experience these services as being isolating and unfriendly. The BPS set out to address these dual challenges by introducing a youth-centred programme that proactively reaches out to disconnected and discouraged NEET youth, engages them in a holistic assessment of their lives, coaches them to understand what they want to achieve in life, and actively refers them to available services and opportunities that can enable them to overcome barriers and connect them to learning and earning opportunities. Simultaneously, it engages local service providers that young people are likely to engage with, and invites them to collaborate in a Community of Practice aimed at building a stronger understanding of their role in supporting young people’s transitions to learning and earning, and at developing active problem solving and collaboration to improve service delivery to youth. The programme’s dual aims are a) to improve young people’s well-being, sense of belonging, and navigational capacity so that they are able to (re)connect to learning and earning opportunities and stay in these opportunities for longer periods of time; and b) to improve service delivery to young people in local communities so that youth no longer “fall through the cracks”, and are better supported in their transitions towards learning and earning. The programme was piloted between the beginning of 2022 and the end of 2023 in several sites in Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal a