The Borders Young Talent  project supports young people who face additional challenges in making a successful transition to college from school while in their last year of secondary education.  It also provides support during their first year at college helping them to achieve their desired outcome.

The work will prioritise supporting young people who are care experienced; by this we mean, young people who have been looked after away from home, either in foster or residential care, young people in kinship care or young people who are cared for but remain at home.  Our other priority group for this work are young people who are caring for others; either caring for an adult or a disabled child.  We will also consider supporting young people where rural deprivation is having a significant impact on their engagement with education as our third priority group.

The Borders Young Talent project will provide young people with a mentor who will befriend them and provide one-to-one support with the aim of making a successful transition to College in the coming year.  The mentor’s role is to help the young person identify barriers to their successful attendance and/or completion of their Schools Academy programme and support them through the transition to College.  The mentor will continue to work with the young person in their first year of college to ensure the transition is successful and sustained.  An additional benefit of this work may be better engagement also with their associated school-based programme.