New research from the Community Impact Policy Institute finds that the path towards economic inactivity is visible in childhood, years before the labour market comes into view. Drawing on national data and two Fedcap case studies, Big Picture Learning Doncaster and The New School in Croydon, the paper traces how three linked signals, belonging, attendance and attainment, accumulate and reinforce one another long before a young person becomes NEET. Around 485,000 children aged 10 to 15 often feel lonely, persistent absence now affects more than 1.6 million pupils, and fewer than half reach a grade 5 in English and Maths at sixteen, with the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers wider now than before the pandemic. Yet England's principal screening tool for NEET risk does not begin until Year 10 or 11, by which point the trajectory is largely set. Disengagement, the paper argues, is a pathway rather than an event, and one most effectively and most affordably interrupted in the pre-GCSE years. It sets out five recommendations, led by earlier intervention while pupils are still in school and the embedding of mental health and wellbeing support as core educational infrastructure rather than a referral made once a young person is already in crisis.
Disengaged by 16? How Early Indicators Shape Britain's Path to Economic Inactivity
Tools for the Job? Closing Britain's Skills Divide Through a More Agile System
Reducing AI-Enabled Biological Risk in New York City
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology are making sophisticated biological work possible outside the universities, companies, and government laboratories whose biosafety systems have traditionally contained it. While the likelihood that this leads to the creation or modification of a dangerous pathogen is low, the consequences would be catastrophic. The national debate over whether and how to regulate AI is unlikely to be settled soon. This brief argues that New York City does not need to wait for the AI regulation debate to be resolved. The City can manage AI-associated biological risk with an approach similar to what it applied a decade ago to laboratory biosafety, without directly regulating AI developers or monitoring what people ask AI systems. In 2016 the Health Department did not know which high-containment research laboratories operated in the city or what they handled. The Board of Health required them to register and to report incidents, so that the Department could mitigate risks and plan its response before, rather than during or after, an incident. Keeping track of who is handling dangerous pathogens is something health departments have done for a century. This brief recommends three actions that extend the same approach to high-consequence biological work taking place outside traditional oversight.
Leading as Women: How Women Are Increasing Productivity and Changing Business
Fedcap recently held its 12th Solution Series â Leading as Women: How Women Are Increasing Productivity and Changing Business. The event took place on October 11th at Mutual of America and drew an overflow crowd of Fedcap supporters, and business and political leaders from the community.