The Rigby Foundation launches report with Centre for Social Justice

The Rigby Foundation, chaired by Steve Rigby, has launched a report with the CSJ (Centre for Social Justice) – A New Deal for Young People in the West Midlands. The report is based on detailed research among education leaders and charities to lay out challenges facing young people across the West Midlands, particularly in education, employment and training, but also to identify successful interventions that could be rolled out to address these issues.

The Rigby Foundation, will use the findings of this report to inform its funding strategy to enable our young people to thrive, help them to succeed in school, and have the best possible opportunity to secure meaningful jobs.

The report’s seventeen key evidence-based recommendations include: 

• West Midlands Parents Participation Strategy and 84 attendance mentors across the region to get absent kids back to school

• Guaranteed two weeks of work experience for West Midlands school children before the age of 18.  

• Five hours a week of extracurricular activities in school, supported by local grassroots organisations.

Steve Rigby, Chair of The Rigby Foundation and Co-CEO of Rigby Group commented on the report’s findings:

“The question for me is personal. How can we turbocharge the opportunities for young people living right here in the West Midlands, the place where I grew up and where Rigby Group, our family business, has worked for decades?  The scale of the problem is daunting.  

“Ambition in our young must be matched with an environment that allows them to prosper locally in well paid roles, so it is clear then that there is a great need in the West Midlands for a new approach to helping the next generation to thrive, and the Rigby Family want to be a part of the solution.”

This report is just the beginning of The Rigby Foundation’s work in the region. As Rigby Group approaches its 50th anniversary in 2025, the Rigby family has been reviewing the purpose of their Foundation’s charitable support. Future funding will focus on programmes that help children and young people to succeed in education and to have the best possible chance of securing meaningful and sustainable employment.

Download the full report here.