With over 800 stores across the UK and Ireland – including our 200 in-store pharmacies – we’re proud that Superdrug is the UK’s second-largest beauty and health retailer. We provide our customers with a fantastic and diverse range of health and beauty services combined with the very best in customer and patient care. Our purpose is to provide the very best in everyday accessible health and beauty, bringing innovation and the latest styles and trends to the high street at fantastic prices. We could not achieve this without our dedicated and passionate teams in our stores, our distribution centres and our head office. We are proud partners of Drive Forward and offer both paid placements and meaningful work experience to DFF care-experienced clients each year. We are grateful to be able to engage with the DFF team in their unique and bespoke range of services from attending events such as the 'Pizza Prep' evenings offering interview advice to young people to hosting DFF events at our Head Offices offering insight into our business. Working with DFF has reinforced our belief that talent is everywhere and these partnerships are a great way to offer opportunities to those that may not have had access to them. This is integral to our core values and mission as a brand. We would encourage other businesses to speak to DFF, meet their young people and see for themselves the diverse talent available and benefit from the excellent training that DFF offers for businesses.

Candyspace

We are an independent media planning and buying agency dedicated to doing the right thing - by our clients and by our people. We’re a friendly and open bunch of people but, we’re serious about what we do, and we seriously know our stuff. We create tailor-made, data empowered solutions customised to each of our client’s goals to help them accelerate their growth. We are proud of our culture: how we treat our people, how we interact with our clients, how we approach our work and we believe very strongly that our industry should be open to everyone. Opportunity is everything and we make it our mission to showcase those opportunities to young people from every walk of life. We want everyone to know just how wonderful a career in advertising can be. We are committed to helping young people carve out their career paths, and we are proud to work with Drive Forward to help achieve this. With Drive Forward’s support, we’ve been delighted to deliver our Media Planning Course to a number of care-experienced young people interested in a career in media, and take on our first Media Apprentice who has been an absolute pleasure to have in the team! We’d encourage any employer to work with Drive Forward because like us they really care about forging relationships with substance and they are completely flexible in how they work. Their commitment to care-experienced young people really is inspiring and clear from the outset. This great partnership is also all about engagement which provides excellent opportunities for the whole company to get involved with.

Churchill Group

Baringa Partners is an independent business and technology consultancy. Baringa partnered with Drive Forward in March 2019 after one of their senior partners, Neil Maidment, volunteered with at a Lunch club. Neil offered career advice to young care-experienced young professionals at Drive Forward and saw the potential both in the individuals he met and in what Baringa might offer to further Drive Forward's mission. As a Gold Partner, Baringa are involved at various levels of our organisation – from funding to strategic support to providing a pathway to longer-term employment within Baringa.

Tideway is building and financing London’s ‘super sewer’, a 25km tunnel running underneath the Thames from Acton to Stratford which will clean up the river for generations to come. Drive Forward Foundation is one of three staff charity partners for the project’s client team, with a focus on fundraising and staff support. Tideway has set legacy commitments around supporting local employment and increased diversity in construction and engineering, as well as company values that foster a culture of volunteering and charitable giving. The project is 70% complete so while employment opportunities with us for care-experienced young people are now more limited, we have offered several work experience placements, hosted Aim Higher Days where we have outlined career opportunities in engineering and construction, given advice on the basics of ‘life in an office’ and taken attendees on a boat trip on the Thames to see our sites. As well as donations from staff activities co-ordinated by our staff Charity Committee, Tideway has given in-kind donations – most recently reconditioned laptops – and small grants for specific programmes including a residential course for the 13 to15 group supported by DFF and a Young Professionals programme supporting care-experienced individuals into sustainable employment within the Civil Service. We encourage our staff to volunteer for DFF events – we supported the Lunch Club and, during the pandemic, the ‘Coffee and Connect’ monthly virtual discussions - and have invited DFF staff to speak about the importance of their work. We also believe it is important to support DFF’s staff, checking in with them during the pandemic to make sure that they were coping in very difficult circumstances. In 2020 we were delighted to be given the ‘above and beyond’ award by Lucy and DFF for our support. These sorts of gestures really make it feel like a partnership!

Module are a full-service design agency, providing online and offline experiences to deliver big ideas, beautifully. We offer strategy, branding and digital services to a range of companies, across a number of sectors. This helps to keep our minds sharp, our ideas different and our work life interesting. We have been sharing creative ideas for over 20 years and have now exchanged our London office to fully embrace remote working, and bring you excellent creative services from across the country. Module is a friendly and inclusive company that aims to give people the opportunity for growth and development by encouraging people to be themselves and add their own creativity to the team. At Module, a young care-experienced person can expect a warm welcome and support. While we expect a professional attitude from everyone, we make sure we work with each team member so that everyone can achieve their full potential. Module have worked with Drive Forward for a number of years from hosting ‘Aim Higher’ days, Lunch Clubs, providing work experience to providing pro bono services. We are always happy to discuss ways we can improve our partnership and help young people gain opportunities that may not have been previously accessible. We have learnt that there are a lot of young people out there that can do great things but just need a chance. The young people that have been through our doors have been extremely talented and continue to enable us to provide the best creative services we can by bringing in fresh ideas and approaches to our work. Every business would benefit from giving back and whether it is advice, a day at a company, or work experience, even a small gesture could help a young person get on the path to better opportunities.

We Are Waterloo

Planet Organic is the UK’s first Soil Association certified organic and natural food health store, and we are now the largest, with 12 stores across London. We are at the forefront of the trend towards healthier eating and sustainable retail and are the UK’s first zero food waste food retailer. At Planet Organic, we strive to be more than just a shop. We believe in promoting health in our communities through organic, natural and sustainable products, and acting sustainably and ethically as a business.  Our goal is to promote health within our communities and to be ethical in our treatment of both people and the planet. Being part of a community also means being part of conversations, listening and using the views of those we serve to improve what we do. Planet Organic began working with Drive Forward in 2018, providing work experience and ‘Aim Higher’ days for care-experienced young people. We are proud of our partnership and grateful for the expertise Drive Forward has offered us as we work towards creating truly inclusive workspaces that reflect the communities around our stores in London. They have helped us adapt our recruitment and onboarding processes, given us an important perspective on the wellbeing and support, we offer all employees and provided training to our HR team and managers on communication skills. We are delighted that one young person from Drive Forward has secured a role as part of our Retail Academy programme, a year-long apprenticeship that offers a dedicated learning and development programme and experience across different departments on our shop floors. We hope that this is the first of many to come. We would enthusiastically recommend other employers to partner with Drive Forward and support the inspiring young people they work with.

Oddbox is a food delivery company that is on a mission to reduce food waste by rescuing farm-fresh fruit and vegetables and deliver them straight to people’s doors. Doing the right thing is at the core of everything we do — especially when it comes to the way we run our business. In 2020 we delivered our 1,000,000th box and achieved B-Corp status meaning, we are a business that balances profit and purpose in a bid to build a more inclusive and sustainable economy. In 2021, we welcomed Kiebron for a one-week work experience placement where she was tasked with designing a new box which would help us to pack oddly shaped vegetables. We were pleased to help Kiebron gain work experience as she had just completed her first year of an Art and Design Level 3 course at college and had aspirations of becoming an interior architect. Hosting placements for young people from DFF has proved invaluable and ensures that at Oddbox, we continue to make sure that we are as diverse and inclusive as possible. We pledge to provide a supportive and inclusive working environment for care-experienced young people. We will do this through clear and supportive discussion about goals, needs, and boundaries during their time with Oddbox. This is important to us because we champion inclusiveness and transparency, and want to show someone entering the workforce what a supportive and people-forward business can feel like. “For a mission driven business, it is not just about food waste but more broadly being socially responsible. If you are setting out to be an ethical company, then you should be living it – supporting your community is integral to this. Partnering with Drive Forward and being able to offer opportunities to young people was a no brainer.” Anni Butler, People Operations

Simpact CIC is a consultancy business with a clear social purpose: reinvesting profits from our consultancy activity, to design and deliver support services for disadvantaged young people in London and the South West. We have supported over 230 young people, through our Forward Motion, Breaking Ground bespoke life skills and workshop provision in schools, and our intensive employability support packages for care leavers. We recently launched our internship and employability programme in partnership with Drive Forward; focused on intensive investment in unemployed young people leaving care, to develop their employability skills and social capital. Our interns work with us for 6 months, supporting us with our marketing and sales activity. Our objective is to deliver the best internship programme in the UK for unemployed care leavers. During our programme, interns are paid the London Living Wage and are equipped to work from home, including a laptop, desk, chair - which they keep. Interns will report to the CEO and work with Directors and Associates on key client accounts, to enhance their networks and social capital. They will also have additional training scheduled as part of their working week and have access to a qualified social worker (employed by Simpact) to offer pastoral support whenever they need it, and a referral pathway to specialist counselling support through our partnership with DFF.   By the end of the programme interns will be supported in finding permanent employment. “Simpact are incredible. The team/work model provided me with the time, confidence & support to grow into who I am already after just one month working here as a Marketing & sales intern. 3 months ago, I couldn’t even feed myself as a struggling care leaver, but with Simpact and the teams' guidance, I can finally see a sustainable future ahead of me." Josh, Simpact Intern

“BIE is an award-winning executive recruitment firm that has been building leadership and enabling change for over two decades. We’ve attended Interview Prep and Pizza events, helped DFF’s young people with career advice and wish to provide further support with interview preparation, job applications and CV writing. In the future we want to facilitate internships at BIE and potentially our clients. We are committed to making a positive contribution to the Diversity & Inclusion of the UK workforce and doing what we can to improve our social mobility. We understand now that diverse workforces build better businesses but unless we address the challenges at entry-level positions, we won’t develop the talent pool to sufficiently support this. At BIE we view our relationship with DFF as critical as it allows us access to a talented group of young people whom we can help develop careers they can be proud of. DFF is a wonderful organisation, staffed by wonderful people who have a real impact on the outcomes of care-experienced young people. If you want to help young people who have had a challenging start to life and help them realise their potential then partner with DFF who will help you achieve this!”

Multiverse

Esmée Fairbairn Foundation is one of the UK’s largest independent funders. We aim to improve our natural world, secure a fairer future, and strengthen the bonds in communities within the UK. Drive Forward Foundation is a valued partner and we’ve been impressed by the support they provide care-experienced young people in finding sustainable employment and their collaborative way of working. Supporting care-experienced young people is a key funding priority So, we were thrilled to work with Drive Forward to recruit a young person into our Resources Team. They introduced us to Meron, who has now been with us for over a year. We supported her to complete an MA in Human Resources Management; using the knowledge she gained studying and, on the job, she has been integral to the development of our People strategy. More recently, Drive Forward helped us to recruit Marta into a new Funding Operations role. She is excited about helping those with a similar background to hers through our work and is already a real asset to our operations. As an employer, we offer training and development opportunities for all our staff, alongside a host of benefits including flexible working. We also have a really fantastic team who are passionate about the issues we work on and are committed to making a difference towards our aims. We are proud to have ambitious and talented young care-experienced young people as part of our team to help achieve our goals.