The Journey to EmploymenT (JET) framework

Tackling youth unemployment is a priority. Over 1 million young people are not in employment, full-time education or training—almost 1 in 7 of all young people in the UK. Transitions to adulthood have become increasingly difficult as a result of the economic outlook and the breakdown of traditional pathways into work. This framework helps organisations to understand and measure the impact they have on the journey to employment.

Developing a shared approach

Understanding and measuring impact helps organisations to show what they achieve, identify problems, and learn how to improve. However, organisations lack consistent approaches to assessing the progress of young people. A shared approach to measurement can make it easier for organisations to learn from each other, save money on the costs of developing their own tools, and build the evidence base on what works.

The Journey to EmploymenT (JET) framework

The JET framework is designed to help charities think through how their work contributes to young people’s employability, and plan approaches to evaluation.

Based on evidence from the literature and insights from consultation with experts, we have identified seven groups of factors that contribute to successful job outcomes for young people: personal circumstances; emotional capabilities; attitudes to work; employability skills; qualifications, education and training; experience and involvement; and career management skills.

The framework presents a series of indicators and tools covering each of these aspects. The tools have been drawn together from existing sources, and reflect our assessment of robustness, cost, and ease of use.

Originally launched in May 2013, we have used feedback from across the sector to refine and develop the framework further. Future plans include making the JET framework available online.

The JET Pack

There are a variety of issues that organisations needs to think about when planning an evaluation. The JET Pack is an eight-step guide designed to help organisations implement the JET framework—identifying what to measure, deciding how and when to measure, and using the resulting data to learn and improve.

Case studies

To hear how our pilot organisations used the JET framework, click on the case study links below:

Acknowledging Youths: Previously, we mostly gathered operational data, for example, the number of young people who started the programme. We had no structured way of understanding how people progressed along it. JET has been instrumental in helping us do this.’ > Read more

Blackpool Council: ‘The JET framework was particularly useful from a strategic perspective. It enabled us to look at where we needed to gather evidence, and select some additional tools.’Read more

Cambridge House: ‘We read the JET Pack guidance and agreed it was better to measure a few priority outcomes well, rather than measure everything and overwhelm the kids with too many questions.’ > Read more

East London Business Alliance (ELBA): ‘Not only is it possible to use JET to show we are achieving our outcomes, we can also drill down into the statements that make up the scales and get at some really interesting findings.’Read more

Fluency: ‘I’ve been meeting with lots of investors and a key question is always, “how are you measuring your social impact?” As a young social start up, using a recognised framework has given us more credibility than if we’d made up our own approach.’ Read more

vInspired: ‘Lots of organisations will be using the same measures as us, so we can begin to share our data with others and find out about what types of interventions are working.’ Read more

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This publication was developed by NPC as part of the Inspiring Impact programme, which ran from 2011 until early 2022 and supported voluntary organisations to improve their impact practice. More information about the Inspiring Impact programme.

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