Empowering Young People Through Community and Entrepreneurship Support Services in the UK

1. Introduction

The challenge of delivering meaningful, sustainable support to young people is a pertinent one. In the fast-paced UK, strategies to engage young entrepreneurs and the economically inactive should focus on creating appropriate pathways for young people to make choices about the support that leads to fulfilling training, employment, or enterprise development. Community-based support services are generally designed and delivered by well-meaning community organisations, which tend to focus on the needs of individual unemployed and economically inactive young people. However, the design and delivery of support services to young entrepreneurs must also consider the stakeholders to whom these services are being targeted. Support services should be robustly in place if young entrepreneurs are to engage in training or enterprise activities. The provision of tailored, impartial, and appropriate young people-specific enterprise support is a gap that aims to fill. Undertaking a realist inquiry allows for an analysis of what works, under which conditions, and for whom. This is vital in continuing to develop replicable models that can overcome the barriers.

2. The Importance of Empowering Young People

As youth transition into becoming adults, they experience dramatic changes, including the transition from school to employment. There are distinct groups of youth who are particularly vulnerable and require support. These include young offenders, young people who are leaving supervised accommodation, and young parents, with young people who do not fall neatly into the category of having special needs at risk, as many others who share the same personal characteristics and life challenges may. For example, national employment rates indicate that lower educational qualifications are associated with lower rates for both men and women, with the exception of women among jobs for high education, where the pattern is reversed. Many of those working in lower-skilled jobs face barriers to sustained employment. People working in the fields of hairdressing and leisure and the caring professions are disproportionately young and female, and are much more likely to exit work in the event of having a child, often finding it difficult to return to work afterwards. For a great many people in the UK, the dynamics of low levels of education, inactivity, and inaccessibility are being reproduced with the next generation. To disrupt the cycle of multigenerational disadvantage, young adults require the same level of career support and access to community services as older adults, which is why our mission has always been to support and empower them.

3. Overview of Community Support Services

Some communities are home to individuals and community groups that are committed to developing programming and services for young people, designed to help and support them in reaching their full potential. These services come in many forms, such as mentoring services and youth services, and can be seen as operating at different levels or scales. At the local level, and crucially through voluntary provision, we might see services such as youth clubs that range from extensions of informal drop-in facilities to formal programs aimed at particular social development issues, such as sports development for young people, or conversely as more strategic forms of local service provision through neighborhood management partnerships. This section discusses the wide range of community-based services in existence to help and involve young people and the basis on which these services operate. It is noted that much of the service provision that exists is considered specialised and, given its local and often voluntary basis, lacks strong connections with other central forms of support. Furthermore, service levels have in recent times been subject to change, frequently relying on their ability to secure funding or ad-hoc support to undertake specific projects. The widespread and varied nature of community-based youth work is discussed and analysed later in this article, which also relates its theory and practice to the development of youth enterprise.

4. Entrepreneurship Support Services

Support services for young entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom provide the confidence, knowledge, and experience required to move from being unemployed to self-employment, and from being excluded from society to participating more fully in it. This article explores the existing set of available youth entrepreneurship support services to identify the 'best in class' offers that could inform the nature of support needed for young people to create social entrepreneurial activities such as youth-led community organizations. Gaining a rich understanding of the entrepreneurial services on the ground requires a focus on youth entrepreneurship and broader youth volunteering and employability programs that support young people to be more entrepreneurial in their everyday lives.

An imperative to support young people to start up their own businesses exists, as they are twice as likely as other age cohorts to be out of work, facing high unemployment rates, and pursuing more traditional routes to employment has failed them. One in five British university graduates is unemployed six months after gaining their degrees, with 45 percent of graduates in non-graduate jobs. However, the perception by young people aged 18 to 24 is that annual enterprise growth in the United Kingdom has halved from 25 percent to 12 percent, making entrepreneurship appear to be in decline. Moreover, the number of self-employed people in the UK aged 16 to 30 being at the highest in 25 years, with a quarter being under 21 years old, is a difficult statistic to interpret. Yet, while older people dominate the UK's self-employment rates, nearly half of under-30s' jobs are precarious, often on zero hours contracts, compared to just one-tenth of those over 30 in self-employment. The stabilisation of youth unemployment statistics saw the number of 16 to 24-year-olds in self-employment rise 73 percent from the first quarter of 2008 to 2014, with 141,000 young people choosing to become self-employed. However, the increase in the number of young people becoming self-employed has been driven by necessity rather than choice, as 39 percent of those becoming self-employed were unemployed. As such, it is likely that many young people who are self-employed are on a trajectory of precariousness, with more traditional routes to employment having failed them.

4.1. Business Incubators

Established and potential entrepreneurs have a variety of actors and organisations that provide support services to help them create and develop businesses, including business advice, skills training, networking, mentoring, specialist facilities, affordable finance, and assistance in marketing and management. Some of these services are provided by a wide range of organisations and are typically offered free or at a low cost to clients. These are funded by national and local governments, other statutory bodies, private sector organisations, and individual firms. Business incubators can be seen as offering a package of these support services. The term "business incubator" comes from the name traditionally applied to organizations that nurture and guide young, small manufacturing and service companies through the early stages of their development, often housed in a shared office or workshop unit.

Incubators provide fledgling businesses with valuable support and guidance. It recognises that there are benefits associated with the development of clusters of similar new businesses in a particular locality, industrial estate, or development area. In particular, offering help to young, developing businesses is designed to reduce the level of business failure, or the death of new start-up enterprises, by helping to develop their ideas and products, access to advice and expertise on management, financial, marketing, and technology issues, and by enabling them to operate within adequate, low-cost premises. Moreover, the concentration of "new" or "start-up" company activity can play a part in targeted area regeneration strategies, acting as a catalyst for the development of prosperous business networks or worthy incubator clients to join and engage with.

4.2. Mentorship Programs

One of the most consistent emerging findings from the overall effectiveness of youth entrepreneurship programs and services is that formal mentorship programs can provide young entrepreneurs with the benefits of shared experience, encouragement, constructive feedback, connections, practical advice, and legitimacy. In particular, mentorship can smooth over some challenges such as feeling isolated, finding individuals to provide informal support, sharing professional concerns with customers or associates, or asking for assistance from peers. The central importance of matching the right mentor with the right mentee is evident. The diversity of young entrepreneurs and their businesses may require that they find different kinds of information, resources, knowledge, and perspectives from their relationships with their mentors. Special schemes are therefore required to pair young entrepreneurs with successful and experienced entrepreneurs and professionals willing to act and available to offer adequate time and guidance.

Having specific profiles and targeted networking programs can be particularly important for those young entrepreneurs working alone or choosing or needing to establish location-minimal businesses. Youth entrepreneurship programs and services tend to focus their mentorship efforts on startups. However, mentoring support and networks may help establish positive young adult role models who, in turn, communicate messages about the attractiveness and benefits of entrepreneurship to local communities and to their wider target group of young people. Furthermore, mentors or advisors focused on young people help to shape the characteristics of the businesses that young people establish. A consistent finding of business start-up research is that businesses that have spent time working with knowledgeable advisors are less likely to fail.

4.3. Access to Funding

One barrier to starting a business is the lack of access to funding. The risk of investing precious early career earnings in a start-up, and the need at the same time to spend every waking hour on launching and running it, is a risk few can afford to take. Access to public equity finance for young entrepreneurs in their 20s is nearly impossible in the UK; for example, the Alternative Investment Market is an over-25's market. Even though generally the UK has the most varied and liberal venture capital market in Europe, a report on impact investing in the UK revealed a rather less flattering looking table, with only 5% of the seed funding actually invested in individuals. However, product development and marketing are critical—the funds needed to bring a business to market are lower than ever. The average capital requirement is less than £5,000, and a total of £5.3 billion in Midlands businesses have less than £100,000 turnover.

Banks also have a role to play; however, since the financial crisis, small firms have been reluctant to seek fresh lending: the number of loan applications fell by almost 50%. However, according to some business directors, one deterrent to corporate borrowing—the possibility that directors may lose no more than their small investment in a deal—is one of the biggest perceived problems. Secondly, although UK venture capital returns have been stingy for investors, a significant percentage of small business finance owners claim not to be aware of the existence of relevant public grants, VC, or business angels, while a further percentage claim not to have applied. Thirdly, entrepreneurs have to prepare a persuasive case in a structure that corresponds to that used by potential funders and be able to substantiate key forecast numbers.

5. The Role of Local Governments

As local authorities, regional councils, and decentralised governments are increasingly taking decisions that require a better understanding of the social consequences of structural reforms and the political ability to manage social conflicts, local governments are given an increasing role in designing employment, education, and welfare support strategies. These policies are embedded within specific socio-economic and institutional contexts and show peculiar institutional settings. Thus, local partnerships are getting an increasingly relevant role, and local ecosystems have an active role in various fields, ranging from entrepreneurship support services to job recovery, education services, and welfare support. A number of studies have embraced this approach in recent years to assess the internal process of partnerships in local public employment agencies or the role of local partnerships in reducing unemployment.

Indeed, data available suggest that, over time, local administrations conduct an increasing array of interventions aimed at enhancing the capacity and dynamism of their territories. Particularly relevant interventions in this respect are knowledge and innovation-driven local policies that are deemed essential to promote a more sustainable and lasting local development by fostering the business demography of local areas and the access of their citizens to higher skills and value-added employment. Cooperation among different stakeholders and a suitable allocation of the employed resources to create conditions that are favourable to private enterprise development and to increase demand for skilled jobs and employees are considered fundamental to favour lasting regional economic growth.

6. Case Studies of Successful Initiatives

6.1. Case Study 1: Youth Enterprise Scheme

Youth Enterprise Scheme operates in the South West of England. It is the result of a partnership between South West Rural Community Councils and the Prince's Youth Business Trust. The partnership provides the resources to help deliver individual support and grants to young people who need these to start their own businesses. It gives the partnership the ability to create a society in which self-employment is a realistic option for young people, helping them develop new community enterprises as well as developing and maintaining the infrastructure required to help these organisations grow to serve the needs of those who need them. One might consider, as the partners do, that this program is motivated by a revulsion against a society that squanders the talents of 1 in 4 young people. This is a 'waste of potential, a cost to the state and society, and quite simply, grossly unfair.'

While I'm sure that if we had undertaken a full evaluation of demand, then even a supply of 180 enterprise clubs each for over 15-year-olds would be outstripped by the level of demand. While we could look into the mode of operation and function of these local support clubs, wherever they are in England, community enterprise would play no role. Its task would be to create the facilities, products, services, and projects that enable young people to register as businesses in their pursuit of social and economic benefits. With this initiative, we have an example of an attempt to shape microeconomic development programs that would strengthen community income and employment development. Its rationale lies in local self-help action and entrepreneurship skills and application. It cannot succeed, and its potential is not being fully realised solely because opportunities to access loan support for the business start-up phase have been removed.

6.2. Case Study 2: Young Innovators Program

This case study documents the Young Innovators Program, which aims to harness young people's enthusiasm for their environment and history through entrepreneurial action. It also aims to develop their enterprise skills. The principal focus of the project is to create a series of education and experience opportunities in heritage and green tourism, events, land use, museum retail, equipping young entrepreneurs with the skills, developing links, and business acumen to earn a living from their rich, historic, and beautiful surroundings. This project shows the value of fully using a community—engaging young people and empowering them by forming partnerships to establish a lasting benefit, such as developing a skill set for assisting disadvantaged young people to prosper. With each project, a business product is developed that can be used by other communities or used as part of the project's evaluation and monitoring framework to reduce the feelings of failure often experienced by other young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The project also introduces key concepts such as employment, trainers, and mentors, and enables young people to see a role for themselves. In developing self-sustainable businesses, the project is also using Millennium Awards given to young members of the project. This award recognises young people who have the creativity and determination to start or develop their own business. The Trust has joined the Learning to Succeed partnership of local colleges, enterprise trusts, and the local authority to launch the 'Young Innovators in Heritage and Green Tourism - A Learning to Succeed Approach' project. The Chief Executive of Argyll College said: 'For young people, there are few opportunities in some parts of Argyll. By generating local pride, they can acquire new entrepreneurial skills that will enable them to remain part of the communities that they have helped so much.

7. Challenges Faced by Young Entrepreneurs

First, the challenges related to access to finance for young entrepreneurs are examined. Although there is a vast array of finance options available to young people starting a business, ranging from loans and grants to alternative funding routes such as community-led finance, crowdfunding, and social investment tax relief, research shows that young entrepreneurs are failing to make use of the finance available to them due to a range of barriers that some institutions are facing. In addition, over and above access to finance, there are two major challenges facing young entrepreneurs – an information gap and a lack of confidence and key skills. Moreover, once a new business is set up – if it is to be sustainable – it needs access to a range of support services, from insurance and accounting to legal and marketing services. However, it was noted that some of these services appear to be less accessible to younger business owners, particularly when they are low-profit and highly volatile, have little security and few assets, and have more limited networks and capacities. The UK accepts that young entrepreneurs often encounter a range of difficulties when looking at business services such as business tools, legal, accounting, and HR, particularly when they operate in less traditional businesses and through different venues such as digital platforms and the gig economy. They have noted that this support is expected to grow with the rise of the digital economy and that the widespread adoption of digital tools can aid young entrepreneurs in accessing markets and customers at an earlier stage, even if they may also face significant capital requirements to grow.

Another key aspect is regulatory barriers. Limited access to business registration and lack of representation of small and micro-enterprises that are common in the informal economy hampers the overall output of the sector. Indeed, the relationship between youth unemployment and the informal economy seems mutual, with the lack of access to the formal economy pushing young entrepreneurs into the shadows. Mentorship and role models are also crucial. Despite their practical usefulness for new entrepreneurs, mentorship and networking structures are already structured around the working day and currently include a heavy focus on professionals. This is yet another factor that enterprise education and government support for new entrepreneurs need to be equipped to manage. For example, among the perceptions of the spoken informants, young entrepreneurs encounter a shifted point of view from stakeholders involved in existing activities. For example, they serve society by initiating additional business activities, leading to income generation and labour market inclusion. They encounter young ambitions, seeking sustainability and flexibility in real activities to help protect the environment, the vulnerable or underprivileged, and to have autonomy in time and place management and job crafting. All the young entrepreneurs' processes are based on empowerment: in this framework, a young entrepreneur is mindful of his capabilities and appreciates the value of different meanings.

7.1. Access to Resources

One of the major difficulties facing rural and urban young entrepreneurs in their struggle to establish a business is that of 'getting started' and their 'business growth and survival.' A considerable amount of resources favours the Bank. Its entrepreneurial encouragement promotion program will only act as a stimulus, yet development is increasing at an unsatisfactory pace. The lack of affordable finance is, of course, but a small part of the entrepreneurial support dilemma. Advice is needed too, and the Bank's concerns are here confined to this aspect of the problem in their new 'Business Start-Up Unit,' which has considerable information resources at its disposal, together with access to off-the-shelf software packages. Other small software systems at reasonable prices are being developed.

In addition to those well-established major resources, there exist independent enterprise centres such as the Manchester Enterprise Centre, whose services include consultancy advice provided by very competent and experienced young men and women who have access to the faculty experts. These consultancy services are in great demand and could expand further. Facilities are provided by a science park, in collaboration with the banks, which include board room-type consultations with bankers, solicitors, architects, various brokers, and other professional advisors. The Manchester Enterprise Centre also provides, with support from the area, an economic development service geared towards making small businesses more receptive to initiatives from the service sector. Providing survey work to collate and monitor the attitudes and activities of 'clients' and, where necessary, to set in motion various 'attitude modification' processes.

7.2. Market Competition

An important mechanism to assess the efficiency of markets and firms is the degree of competition they face in their market. The fact that prices are great markers of marginal costs and that they tend to fall if the firm becomes less efficient and costs are subsequently passed on to the customers is well established in economics. Markets are thus usually characterised as competitive or non-competitive, and the metrics we use to make this assessment are related to whether there are many firms, the firm size distribution, and the presence of entry and exit. Modern economics uses a myriad of metrics to determine the degree of competition in a given market, and some of the most widely used were introduced in the field of economics. Even if usually we can have an educated guess about the likely competitive structure of a market without the need to estimate these, the fact that it is possible to do so quantitatively is an important step forward in terms of the scientific method.

7.3. Skill Gaps

Apprenticeships and other types of vocational learning appear to be increasing, and they are in growing demand. Despite the large increase in degree students, over the last ten years, only about 30% of young people go to university, so nearly half of all young people who are able to leave full-time compulsory education enter the workforce directly. Additionally, quitting full-time study should not be taken as a decrease in human capital; informal learning on the job or other types of informal training can compensate for the loss of human capital arising from quitting.

Despite the recent rapid growth in the number of degrees and degree holders, only small and no real long-term increases in the relative earnings of those with qualifications at level 1, 2, or 3 have been observed. Many of the expected educational wage effects are not, in fact, due to greater human capital and skill levels; once more, unfaithful signalling impacts are likely to have exacerbated them. This makes it all the more important to examine what really happens to those who choose to acquire more skills. Finally, occupational change and vacancy data show that demand is growing at every skill level, and few jobs require minimal skills only. For example, some 52% of jobs in the UK require NVQ 2 level and above.

8. Strategies for Effective Community Engagement

A meaningful and purposeful relationship with the local community is a key element that enables voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) to co-produce their services with young people and also ensures organisations are locally responsive. In investigating building strong and effective connections with local communities that engage in employability support services for young people who are not in employment, education, or training, the research found that there are a number of strategies that the VCOs reported playing a critical part in their localism success. Developing partnerships with local referral agents, other VCOs, and businesses locally, and being open to the needs of potential young participants were the three most crucial strategies for successful localism.

At the initial stage, the engagement with local referral agents, like local authorities, advisors, or schools, played a critical role in helping VCOs connect with the local communities. By interacting with those active in the field of NEET young people, understanding who the young people are, and what specific requirements they have, VCOs could be better prepared to address those needs, which is critical for those NEET young people looking for employment or to re-engage within the educational system. It also enabled VCOs to establish that the motivated young people they refer are 'work-ready' and hence increase the chances of a longer engagement and better outcomes over the NEET transition into employment. Being friendly and collaborative with their peers and the local community was a significant aid to those young programs according to the findings, given that a non-hostile relationship enabled local VCOs, businesses, support services, and local partners to complement the VCOs' own training and support services to the whole group of NEET participants for the betterment.

8.1. Building Partnerships

Most young people are actively engaged in the lives of the communities where they live. Young people are traditionally community-oriented. Their participation rates are higher in non-volunteering activities (event-based activities, fundraising, helping neighbours, etc.), while they volunteer less than their older age groups. Should this not be a good reason to reward them with an adequate support system to develop their potential by drawing out their sense of initiative so that they can be both active and responsible, and ensure that they can build better lives for themselves and respect the society in which they live? In the present context, associations and local players should help young people further develop these skills. At the same time, they should do more to make young people contribute to the community by recognising their ideas and involving them in local life. This is particularly important in rural communities where the number of possible role models for young people may be limited, and where services may not be as developed as in other parts of the UK. For that reason, partnerships with locally based organisations are vital and can add enormously to the potential benefits of visits. As we have discovered, the most effective links are built on a foundation of mutual respect and understanding between different organisations. In this context, education is not limited to the transmission of knowledge, but also encompasses the active and formative participation of young people in workshops, conferences, and exchanges, etc., which enhance understanding and commitment. In this connection, associations or clubs may assist the school by inviting pupils to join them in their activities (leisure and culture, humanitarian causes, preservation of the environment, etc.).

8.2. Enhancing Communication

Communication ability is a skill that is highly valued by employers, young people, and other stakeholders. The young people involved in this study highlighted a number of areas in which they had improved their communication ability. These were: increased confidence; ability to communicate with others from different cultures; active listening; making presentations; asking questions; meeting new people; holding conversations with people they do not know; and expressing themselves effectively in both formal and informal situations. a) Interpersonal Communication Developing a broad range of communication skills was seen as one of the key benefits of the support that young entrepreneurs could receive. For young people, these skills can play an important role in future career success: all young people would put it at the top of the list of what they want to learn about. Some people don’t understand it, but communication is the building block for everything else. We are not given the tools to do it. I now need to have skills around listening and answering questions, developing relationships, and understanding cultures, as well as delivering a presentation. I didn’t have any of these skills at school.

9. The Impact of Technology on Youth Empowerment

Significant technological advancements over the past few decades have increased awareness of global challenges and made information more accessible. This has created opportunities for innovative start-ups and social enterprises, unique platforms to express ideas, and a direct line to communities and decision makers. Moreover, the Internet is an important tool for youth in the expression of their creativity, as well as for learning, accessing knowledge, and engaging in employment. The next section looks at the potential of the Internet to empower young people for improved life chances. Technological progress and greater online activity offer a space for increased forms of empowerment, such as socialization and social cohesion, networking, and political participation. Younger people frequently have greater digital skills and rely on mobile connectivity, making access to the Internet a powerful tool for voice and social participation. Helping make agenda setting and policy-making more inclusive is a key consideration, and information and communications technology solutions can work with existing power structures and institutions or disrupt the status quo, depending on the chosen approach. Media strategies, Internet access projects, and social media/online platforms can generate the empowerment of young people, facilitating their access to rights and services, and contributing to improved life opportunities. Technology thus offers potential benefits for the young and others, though there are often concerns associated with the speed and delivery of such changes.

9.1. Digital Skills Training

Many disadvantaged young people lack basic computer skills. In some instances, this is because the necessary hardware does not exist within the family home. There is, therefore, a need to provide opportunities for them to gain these skills. While it is possible to develop basic digital skills primarily through leisure activities, there is concern that doing so may be slow and the skills gained might not be particularly relevant for the workplace. Therefore, a digital skills training program may be an important stepping stone to more advanced training and, eventually, a job.

National and international governments have been successful in leveraging the support and expertise of large multinational technology companies to develop their educational services. However, in other cases, the aims of these companies may not necessarily be aligned with the public service goals of developing the communities in which they operate. Further, grassroots community and entrepreneurial support organizations have an expertise that, typically, can more efficiently support specific groups of disadvantaged young people. Therefore, it is of interest to consider whether the digital technology companies can be encouraged to extend their expertise into these community organizations. In this chapter, feature suggestions for specific software tools are given to expose a wide range of students to the most relevant and demanding skills for the 21st-century workforce.

9.2. Online Networking Platforms

As online networking has proven to be an increasingly effective means of connecting with others and sharing information, we have developed two complementary networking websites offering a series of valuable networking benefits. Our 'Online Learning Area' site makes available a unique selection of learning resources, guidance, hints, and tips, as well as listing useful national contacts and service providers' details. These resources have been designed in partnership with learning and development experts. Through our 'Red Alert' site and email service, we also enable all interested community members and solicitors to participate in a series of facilitated discussion forums. These discuss recent events and topical challenges and successes, with the purpose of exchanging ideas, learning from experience, and supporting each other.

Our development of this component of the initiative will ensure ease of access to our services. People will not be excluded if they are unable to attend an event during the day at the institution or prefer to engage with each other in some other way. As our contact management database is updated, you too will be able to make links across the different features directly with potential businesses or for mutual support on different aspects of enterprise and community. We cover enterprise activities, employment and access to learning, the environment, and community building/regeneration. Again, these tools are made available through agreements with corporations. We plan to evaluate the use of these developmental tools on an annual basis through discussions with participants and responses to online surveys.

10. The Role of Education in Entrepreneurship

The UK has a proud history of entrepreneurship, but entrepreneurial potential among young people is said to be slipping. Attention is focusing on education, including universities, which are seen to play an important role in the development of individuals as enterprising leaders; not only providing the knowledge and understanding for economic growth but also serving as a vehicle for social mobility and a means to address complex challenges facing society. This chapter examines the role played by educational institutions in providing entrepreneurship education to the next generation of entrepreneurs. The discussion considers the challenges and opportunities that students from diverse backgrounds face when embarking on their entrepreneurial path. The aim here is to understand the factors that affect how diverse groups engage with entrepreneurship education and to offer important insights for educational practitioners and policymakers aimed at broadening access to enterprise support schemes and unlocking potential, which in turn can benefit society and the economy.

Entrepreneurial potential is not evenly spread throughout the defined education system. Between the haves and the have-nots, the difference is striking, and promising entrepreneurs from a wide variety of minority groups receive less educational support and are often overlooked by educational institutions. It is not that youth in some of these diverse groups do not want to become entrepreneurs; there might be compelling reasons why aspirations do not always translate into actuality, and these can create significant hurdles affecting progress within entrepreneurship education, especially when students have a lower understanding and fewer resources to cope with these barriers or educational pathways. Furthermore, youth may be deterred by the deprecation often communicated regarding entrepreneurship, and they might have fewer experiences of others who demonstrate entrepreneurial behaviours and contribute to this knowledge transmission. Beyond these obstacles, entrepreneurship courses at university might appear to be of less value to potential entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds, as they switch their interest to a limited number of tutorial classes, perhaps because the subject matter of Business Studies is less fully developed. This chapter discusses the influence of these barriers and the implications for the delivery of entrepreneurship education with a particular focus on student diversity. This discussion is important at this time because policymakers and other interested parties are making increasing efforts to reduce educational inequalities among young people. However, educational institutions need to understand what will work with these diverse groups and why.

10.1. Incorporating Entrepreneurship in Curriculum

Schools should be encouraged to develop a curriculum that helps improve self-employment, entrepreneurial skills, and economic understanding, which are equally important regardless of whether students have their own business. Young people with a good understanding can better manage their working lives, thus avoiding unemployment in the future. Such a curriculum would be beneficial at many educational levels. At the primary level, the concept of private earning and an individual's consumption choices could help highlight the workings of the economy. For example, at the secondary level, themes such as business in action emphasize the increasing importance of enterprise in a modern economy and encourage students to consider the problems that entrepreneurs might face. Furthermore, it emphasises the skills and knowledge relevant for developing a business idea into a successful venture. At the secondary school level, students who are considering work experience can be placed with self-employed individuals, which can make them aware of the self-employment option. This would particularly be the case where local businesses are visited during those students' work experience placements.

In a school with attempted equal opportunities, the enterprise-based schemes would remove any 'stereotypical entrepreneurs' by giving every student access to creative enterprising activities. This kind of activity is beneficial in developing self-esteem, fostering creativity, and promoting positive attitudes toward school. In addition, working in groups emphasizes the necessary requirement of the division of labour and individual skills that must be developed when setting up a business. Career officials have been known to have difficulty supplying appropriate services for those students who understand the idea of self-employment but do not choose to pursue higher education. However, career officers can rely on the following suggestions: not just promoting self-employment, diploma programs, and the stimulation of mini-enterprises in the course. In work associated with support services, schools can complement work done in careers and guidance lessons with continual emphasis on the advantages and disadvantages of a career as an entrepreneur.

10.2. Extracurricular Programs

A common critique of UK universities is that they have had a tendency to overemphasize academic qualifications and, because of concentration on research, are not attuned to the increasingly competitive graduate employment market in the private, public, and third sectors. In spite of rising tuition fees, there has been a reluctance to show how the university experience can be mapped across the five core areas required by employers, namely soft skills, enterprise, self-employment, and formal work experience. Wider measures of success go beyond graduate statistics and annual alumni giving and recognise the role universities play in providing graduates with a mixed set of life chances. Many universities are keen to offer diverse extracurricular programs. These usually offer tailored training for large numbers of students wishing to take positions leading to careers in business and finance in the largest private-sector companies, the bigger commercial law firms, or the management accounting firms. Graduates can be equipped with qualifications such as law and accounting training, and as a result, aspirant students need a helping hand in seeking university selectivity of choice and in gaining the correct grades to secure these professional roles. The shift in policy aiming to widen participation involves seeing a broader mission than active access engagement marketing, targeting students from state comprehensives. It is about educating the whole person for citizenship, thinking about how young people might be helped out of structured school learning based around four cores, and allowing them to develop the existing interests and aspirations that might better develop their latent talents. Universities are bound to offer more extracurricular opportunities than the private sector. These activities might assist many state-educated future graduates in engaging with the private sector ethos. It is about improving the employability of students through well-rounded student development. Allowing the more academic bits of the student to flourish, short of measured sponsorship, is the key.

11. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Support Services

A wide range of beneficial physical, mental, social, and economic outcomes are attributed to the positive development of young people. Using an extensive narrative review of the existing qualitative and quantitative literature on the impact of group behavioural interventions via support services on youth empowerment, We found that the programs targeted at increasing the skills and capital of a young person in a deprived community are effective in preventing problem behaviour among young people and have a positive effect on leisure activity, quality of life, health, educational attainment, and participation in accordance with the law and the culture, values, and norms of the community. There was, however, no evidence that the undermined benefits exist for employment, positive interpersonal relationships, family, and emotional or psychological factors.

11.1. Success Metrics

The success of community organizations and entrepreneurship ventures is difficult to measure, especially when their primary goals are things like improving communities, raising young people's self-esteem, or enhancing their resilience. A large part of today's literature consists of self-assessments or qualitative assessments of successes. Research on entrepreneurship appears much more commercial and sales-focused than those based on regional development strategies and small and medium-sized enterprises' survey analyses. It often emphasizes scaling achievements and financial distant objectives such as sales, customers, valuations, market share, etc., rather than other business achievements or the extent to which individual entrepreneurship ventures have achieved socio-economic impacts, employment, job quality, reputational advantages, social value, or proximity to community objectives. However, several reports highlight the way organizations work, suggest the improvement of practices, and encourage alignment with other international certification systems or codes of practice. Research identifying scientific criteria for the assessment of social entrepreneurship organizations' performances typically combines financial, economic, socio-economic criteria, and impact areas. Helping social entrepreneurs and businesses apply an adequate business model is as important as enabling them to pledge social objectives. We also find some information related to business performance such as growth strategies, financial stability, marketing and sales promotion, training policies, management, and funding relevant to part or all of the organization's diversities. Following this, the end of business operations results in objective benchmarks and targets for better determining sustainability goals.

12. Future Trends in Youth Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship and innovation are crucial for long-term economic growth and increased resilience, in particular for those regions of the world that are less innovation-driven and therefore lagging behind. The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the urgencies for accelerating economic recovery. If entrepreneurship support providers have the intensive advice and support of young entrepreneurs who are trying to solve many of these difficult challenges, then the future of entrepreneurship support is much more promising. Part of the responsibility for future trends as identified here lies with young people.

Policy responses should be designed to address the specific challenges that have hidden costs, tackling the many sticky or slow structural factors that have made some predominantly young generations particularly vulnerable to the COVID-19 shock. Policymaking should work to create a more favourable environment that can contain the damage caused by the recession, help young people to prepare for the post-pandemic challenges, and reduce the further risks triggered by uncertainty. At the very least, this paper is intended to be a catalyst to engage researchers and policymakers in more work, so that some of these inspiring future trends in youth entrepreneurship do not solely depend on a pandemic response. If some of the many promising programs in place can manifest these future trends in youth entrepreneurship, then we are more likely to achieve a forward-looking, evolving entrepreneurial support sector with a more sustainable future.

12.1. Sustainability and Social Enterprises

Businesses have traditionally been driven by the goal of maximising shareholder value. However, such profit-driven motives can have significant negative social and environmental consequences that externalize negative impacts and create unequal societies. There are also increasing experimental attempts aiming to embody concerns for these potential negative consequences directly into the operating functionality of the enterprise itself. A social enterprise focus has moved beyond being remedial to one that seeks to positively create new ways of organizing markets and how the accumulation of capital may be conscripted to address current societal and, in particular, environmental challenges while maintaining the value creation capacity and entrepreneurial dynamism on which a successful market economy is based. Time will be the real judge of the success of the burgeoning growth of social enterprise development programming that has been witnessed over the past few years. In order for social enterprises to prosper, support services are needed that turn innovative experimental activity into real and sustainable business activity. Through this, valuable insights have been built as to what type of activities have the greatest potential to underpin social enterprises, and one of the most pressing challenges is to address obstacles to those business models acting in the public and wider social interest. However, current operating contexts and a primary focus on income need to be added to these lists. Moreover, findings from blossoming social enterprise centres need to be examined further to reveal the skills and knowledge requirements in other speculative social enterprise ecosystems.

12.2. Remote Work Opportunities

One of the most transformative aspects of remote connected work is that it is location-independent, which offers significant advantages for young people who are often willing to travel in pursuit of new opportunities or enriched learning. Jobs on offer for young people can be spread across the country, minimizing travel. People with the right skills can do these jobs, whatever their location. This is a strategy very relevant to young people who live in more remote and poorer communities—where the on-the-ground local job options can sometimes be limited to monotony and decay. Wiltshire is a county in South West England, and it was here early testing of remote working for the UK government was undertaken. The Department for Work and Pensions in Wiltshire recruited a number of mainly self-employed and disabled individuals. All the people recruited effectively and efficiently answered customer calls from their homes for services run by the Department for Work and Pensions. However, remote workers only need access to a telephone, headset, and a trained operating system, so they could potentially be working for any area.

Experiences with public service delivery in the UK are positive. At the beginning, some disability-focused charities sought to assist in Wiltshire, fearing that their traditionally employed service users were at risk of losing welfare benefits. They were concerned that income was set to rise above levels deemed acceptable for benefits, leaving those who left traditional welfare payments a lot worse off. This was shown not to be the case. The earnings supplement seemed to significantly improve family finances without putting additional pressure on public services. The pilot experiment data also suggested a range of secondary health and social benefits too. As the new City Centre District for Leeds now seeks to work with the Humanitarian Design Organisation, the examples of these assisted experiences offer the potential to replicate the scale across many more problems. First, attracting young people into more meaningful roles with significant career paths into public service in the provinces seems to be a logical progressive step away from overall reliance on services provided in and around the South East of England, including London.

13. Conclusion

This article has presented findings from an optimistic case study of the ways in which organisations are working to empower young people today. It has shown how provision for young people in formal education and outside in communities focuses on friendship and support, building the capability of individuals, helping young people themselves to dominate the purpose of provision, drawing upon assets available in particular communities and fostering trust. The call for research that demonstrates how and why particular community and entrepreneurial support services might help build social capital has been noted. This article has shown that interpersonal trust and associational and institutional trust help provide explanations for the fundamental role of social infrastructure in the empowering support provided to young people.

The question arises of just how far this small-scale, micro-level service provision is able to deliver to young people or even to help deliver better outcomes for young people. There is an imperative for educational institutions at all levels to proactively seek local solutions to local issues, in the face of rapid social, economic, technological, organisational, and demographic change. Young people in this study are not passive recipients of support. They demonstrate considerable capability themselves and are increasingly recognised as significant actors on whom both contemporary profeminist and entrepreneurial community developers can draw. Contemporary responses are communitarian and bottom-up. The focus is upon community capacity rather than limitations in young people and their parents. It would seem that this is not bottom-up support for neoliberalism through nurturing future entrepreneurs, as some critics of the enterprise problem solutions identify. It is, rather, operationalising community capacity in a non-threatening, speculative, grassroots way. But a small-scale case study within one existing market setting at one point in time cannot take the question much further than opening up research.