47% Graduates Under-employed: Strategic Review

I have begun working on "Young Surrey: Strategic Review 2014-15" and as ever am rushing to have it ready to present to Trustees on 29 April.
The identification of issues affecting young people is by now well known. The Surrey Community Foundation's "Surrey Uncovered " is a superb account of the issues and inequalities in Surrey.It's based upon data held in Surrey-i , being Surrey CC's publicly available data store. The County Council's Youth Support Service also has an excellent  analysis of need as part of its work in re-commissioning of services. So what's left? Well there are some major changes to discern:

• the blending of the private/public/charity sectors and attendant risks and opportunities to all parties -type "Serco fines" into GOOGLE to see my point
• the shift in generations from baby boomers (me) to Generation X, to GenerationY (aka "Millenials") and now to "Generation Citizen " (see Demos report of that name). I'm giving a talk at a forthcoming Surrey Chamber of Commerce event on managing across generations
• the issues of encouraging ("nudging") young people into work through volunteering and  Youth Social Action, growing social enterprises 
• the constant growth in mental health issues, and so on.

So there's lots to focus upon. The mention of mental health is in part prompted by work this week to submit a bid to a grant -making trust today (closing date 19 April) on behalf of The Youth Consortium to raise awareness of mental health issues amongst youth workers, enabling them to spot indicators early, and to have better information on signposting to help. The bid is to produce a video and run workshops for youth workers

We have heard from our Pqasso (Practical quality assurance for small organisations) assessor who will be visiting us in early June to conduct a Level 2 Award assessment...bit scary, but we are quietly confident and have addressed deficiencies which the preparation process has thrown up , so are indeed continuously improving/learning.(We held Level 1 until it's expiry last November)
Easter week-end in prospect: finishing painting front door, lots of churchgoing, weather good, and entire family (11)  on Sunday/Monday- bliss!  Mike