National firm Browne Jacobson has joined forces with Nottingham City Council to pilot a mentoring scheme for students with experience of living in care who aspire to careers such as the law.
Four second-year Nottingham Trent University students studying law, computer science and health and social care participated in the six-month pilot, which was named ‘Next Chapter’.
They received monthly one-to-one mentoring sessions with Browne Jacobson staff and a two-week paid work placement at one of the firm’s offices in Nottingham, Birmingham or Manchester. They also attended training workshops on topics such as personal branding, confidence, commercial awareness and CV development, and participated in networking opportunities.
Victoria Howard, the firm’s senior social mobility inclusion manager, told the Gazette that the pilot was the brainchild of one of the partners, Peter Ware, who leads the firm’s government practice. Nottingham City Council is one of his clients.
Howard said the firm already does social mobility work to support people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The firm has had care-experienced people on its work experience programmes ‘but they need more intensive support. Short placements are not really hitting the mark’.
The pilot is currently being evaluated but Howard said one of the things the firm learnt early on was the impact of trauma on young care-experienced people. ‘They have a lot of under confidence and anxiety. They do not have that family support network. They literally do not have someone to help them write a letter that really impacts their ability to engage with work experience programmes.’
The firm also learnt a lot about the challenges care-experienced people face. Howard said: ‘Little things like punctuality. A lot of people in professional environments expect young people to be on time. Sometimes, some young people are late to sessions because they have been working overnight and coming down after finishing a shift.’
The firm hopes to roll out the scheme more widely.
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