The current higher education outreach needs of students in Years 12 and 13

Health and Society Knowledge Exchange (HASKE) was commissioned by Hello Future to investigate the immediate and current needs of under-represented target groups in Cumbria, from two groups: Years 12 and 13, and Adult Learners. This project builds on the previous work HASKE has undertaken for Hello Future, which includes an in-depth understanding of Widening Participation in the context of Cumbria, an understanding of the Voluntary and Community sector in facilitating outreach, and an analysis of ‘hard-to-reach’ parents and their influence on young people’s decision-making. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on all areas of life, and outreach work is no different. As such, given the circumstances that many students in Year 12 and 13, as well as Adult Learners, have had to face in their education prior to potentially entering Higher Education (HE), the aim of this study was to explore the current and immediate needs they perceived in terms of information about HE, the learning available about career routes, and the types of interventions that Hello Future could provide to support with this.