Introducing Joy Upchurch, the Programme Director for FutureFirst, as the second Q+A in our Spotlight series!
Thank you so much for speaking to us Joy. We’re hoping to start a conversation about work being done to support young people who may be affected by educational inequality – on that basis, can you tell us what FutureFirst is all about?
“Of course! We support state schools and colleges across the UK to reconnect with former students, to build alumni communities for the school. The aim is to inspire and motivate young people – our vision is that a young person’s start in life will not limit their future, and the way that we do that is provide them with relatable role models. Anyone can come into a school and talk about their successes, but if they’ve come from that school the students can see themselves in that role model and they see it as a bit more achievable and realistic for them. I guess it just helps improve their motivation to make decisions to access certain opportunities, but also build confidence in the fact that they can get there as well.”
Amazing, that vision ultimately encapsulates what we’re all aiming for I think. What’s your role specifically in trying to achieve that?
“I’m Programme Director – I oversee the delivery of our programmes on a national scale, and manage a team in the South. We have a South and North team – nice big regions! I support my team to build relationships directly with schools, reach out to former student volunteers and sign them up to support, and then deliver activities to young people. So workshops, mentoring – we do a few things that alumni volunteers get involved with but all focussed on the idea of improving the outcomes of confidence, self-belief, and informed decision-making about next steps after school.
Outside of managing my team to deliver programmes I’m also part of our Senior Leadership Team. So I have strategic responsibilities for reaching out to new schools and promoting our programmes to extend our reach to more pupils, particularly in areas of disadvantage. We encourage schools to run their workshops with their most at-need students, so we are always promoting our vision. I also work on focussed funded projects – for example, up until recently we had a project with the Careers and Enterprise Company that was very focussed on employer encounters and Gatsby benchmarks, which was really interesting to have oversight of as well.”
That all sounds very rewarding. What’s the most memorable encounter you’ve had with a student as part of your work?
“There is one who stands out actually. Normally the work we do is quite one-off – we’ll only meet students once when doing individual workshops. When I was a Programme Officer a few years ago though we were on a three-year project, focussed on young people who were at risk of becoming NEET – so we got to know those students a bit better. There was one kid in a school in Bristol who was very much a cheeky chappy – he was loud and outspoken, and started off the workshops questioning why he was there. He interrupted and had behaviour issues, that kind of thing. But over that year and into the second year he stayed vocal, but transitioned into being the engaged vocal person who was getting other students involved. For example we did some mock interviews and he started off mucking around, but then ended up enjoying it and being genuinely involved. He actually did a case study for us and had an interview for an accountancy apprenticeship lined up when we interviewed him! Considering our work can sometimes be more light-touch, to see outcomes like that is lovely.”
Do you find that the pandemic has affected your programmes?
“Yes, it’s been…interesting. But we’ve actually had more engagement from alumni volunteers! Before, everything was in-person and a lot of former students weren’t able to become alumni volunteers because they were no longer local to their school, but we’ve obviously been doing a lot more virtually now. We do a lot of videos, interviews, virtual workshops – that sort of thing.
The issue with delivering our work hasn’t necessarily been the school closures themselves but more school priorities, and their capacity to engage with programmes when they’re just trying to operate as best they can given all the changes. There’s so much to do simply in terms of academic catch-up that they don’t have much time to focus on anything else. I think a lot of them have been waiting for a bit of normality, but once they realised that maybe we won’t have that for a while they’ve been a lot more open to doing things virtually. We’ve definitely needed to think in a different way. “
Of course – I think we’ve all given up on the idea of ‘normal’ really. But it’s definitely been a high-pressure period – how do you unwind from it all?
“Great question. It can definitely be high pressure, and I’m very aware of the impact of working from home and how that’s been exacerbated by the pandemic – for the whole team.
There’s a campaign run by Mind called ‘Time to Change’, which encourages employers to challenge mental health stigma and champion good mental health. I’m the lead for Time to Change at FutureFirst. So I try to organise wellbeing activities and encourage the team to do exactly that – unwind. I try to practice what I preach as well! Just getting outside when we’re stuck in the house all the time is a good one… I do quite a lot of yoga – it’s so cliché isn’t it?! But outside PLUS yoga now that it’s getting sunny is a great one. Also just sitting down and watching a bit of rubbish TV.”
I think a lot of people can probably identify with that for sure. And just to finish up – what would you say to those ordinary individuals who are reading this and wanting to get involved?
“The main thing is that anyone who went to a state school can sign up to the alumni network for their former school. It doesn’t commit you to anything and you’re just joining the community. We’re launching a new tech platform soon that gives more opportunities to the volunteer – you can give talks at workshops, be a mentor… a variety of things! Beyond that, we’re always looking for partnerships with employers who might sponsor a school or work with us to provide insight into their sector. We’ve had employer partnerships where we’ve designed workshops around that sector, to develop the skills young people might need to enter the industry. That also increases that employer’s talent pipeline! Always just get in touch if you’re interested in being a part of it.”