Ep 1 - Future Voices with Youth Guarantee
FUTURE VOICES
Episode One: Finding Your Fit
A podcast blog by Inclusive Change | Produced in partnership with Youth Guarantee South Gloucestershire
Two young autistic adults. One hundred job applications with almost nothing back. A Saturday job that ended in tears in the stock room. A school career that looked, from the outside, like failure - but really wasn't.
This is Episode One of Future Voices.
Future Voices is a new podcast from Inclusive Change, created in partnership with the Youth Guarantee programme in South Gloucestershire. It is a space where young adults can talk about careers, the future of work, and the questions they actually want to ask employers. Episode One features Rebecca (19) and Wilbur (20), both autistic, both on the programme, and both, in very different ways, finding their place.
Before Youth Guarantee: A Different Kind of School
Both Rebecca and Wilbur came to Youth Guarantee via Pathways Learning Centre, an alternative education provision in South Gloucestershire. Both had experienced mainstream school as something close to unsurvivable.
Rebecca describes the years before Pathways as a kind of slow withdrawal. Panic attacks. Refusing to go in. Social situations that felt like a physical assault on her body. She changed secondary schools twice. Her mum had been flagging concerns since primary school, but high masking meant the signs weren't visible to the people around them.
"I was very high masking. Lots of people didn't see it, so she didn't really get any help until I started secondary school."
— Rebecca
Wilbur's story has some similarities. Isolated in primary school - their own table, away from others because of how anxious they were. Bullying in high school. Moving schools twice. Panic attacks. Stopping going in entirely while waiting for a Pathways referral.
Pathways gave both of them something mainstream school hadn't: a slower pace, no forced participation, and small environments where they could actually breathe. For Rebecca, a performing arts trip to SGS College opened a door. For Wilbur, a small maths class with two supportive classmates - and the Sunshine Van and its bike tracks - gave them a reason to come back.
"What got me into cycling really. I still cycle today because of it."
- Wilbur
After School: The Gap Nobody Talks About
Both Rebecca and Wilbur articulate something that is rarely named in workforce policy conversations: the gap between leaving an alternative provision - a place that worked - and entering an employment landscape that isn't designed with you in mind.
Wilbur graduated from college with a Level 2 in Animal Care, top of their class. Then applied for over a hundred jobs. They got one interview. Every rejection landed as a physical thing with big feelings, overthinking, the particular sting of not being given a reason.
"You haven't given me a reason why, and now I'm overthinking it."
- Wilbur
Rebecca got herself a job at Superdrug at 16. She held it for two years, working four hours on Saturdays and Sundays. But every week was spent dreading it. Customers who were simply assertive felt aggressive. Complaints triggered tears in the stock room. An environment that didn't know she had autism couldn't adapt to her.
Neither of them was failing but they were in the wrong fit.
How did Youth Guarantee Programme help?
Youth Guarantee South Gloucestershire is a funded programme for young adults aged 18–24 who are not in education, employment, or training (NEET). It operates as part of Skills Connect, the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority's regional offer.
For Wilbur, the word that comes up again and again is one-to-one. Their mentor Danny helped them to identify their values, connected them with a work placement in private security (an industry adjacent to their original goal of becoming a police officer), planned bus routes with them days in advance, and sat with them on the day the bus didn't show up and a panic attack threatened to derail everything.
"He sat with me the whole way. We took the bus, we got there. I was terrified. But I made it."
- Wilbur
Wilbur received a free bus pass through the programme - something that sounds small and is, in practice, transformative. Getting to a gym independently. Getting to a placement. Not having to worry about whether a bus ticket will expire before the bus arrives. These are not luxuries. These are the conditions that make participation possible.
For Rebecca, the support took a different shape. She hasn't started a work placement yet. But her few meetings with Danny gave her something she describes as ambition: the belief that if she wants something, she can go after it. The programme's flexibility meant she didn't have to choose between her own capacity and staying engaged.
"He told me if I wanted to stop a meeting for any reason, I could just message them and it wouldn't be a high pressure thing."
- Rebecca
Winning An Award, and What It Represents
At a Youth Guarantee event earlier ttheir year, Wilbur received an award for their achievements on the programme. their mentor had, in the days before, casually asked them which two songs were their favourites. On the day, sitting along the edge of the ceremony, Wilbur watched their mentor look directly at them from the stage and then the music came on.
It is a small detail. It is also the kind of detail that a person carries for a long time.
"When I was at primary school and I was struggling, did I ever think I'd end up getting an award for my achievements? No. Not a chance."
- Wilbur
Wilbur is now in paid employment. they are working up to forty hours. They have a salary and licensing to work in private security.
For Anyone Listening
Rosie Mai Iredale, Future Voices' guest host, comes to their conversation as a peer rather than a presenter. She has ADHD, a learning disability, Tourette's, and has navigated addiction, abuse, and homelessness. She now runs her own business supporting young adults into work. The conversations she has with Rebecca and Wilbur carry a particular kind of honesty because of it.
She tells a story about a neurodivergent young man who couldn't stop singing in their office placement - and who ended up in a hospital cleaning role where patients adored them and he was, finally, exactly where he should be. The point isn't hierarchy. The point is fit.
Rebecca, asked what she would say to those who think young adults should simply 'get their head down and take the rubbish jobs', is clear:
"They're wrong. Everybody should explore all the options they have. If you have an interest in multiple things, try all of it, just to figure out what you really like and what you'd be comfortable doing."
- Rebecca
Wilbur, asked what would happen if the programme disappeared tomorrow, says they would be devastated. In the first year alone, 170 young adults came through. For each of them, that is a chance that wouldn't otherwise exist.
What Their Podcast Is, and Why It Matters
Future Voices was created because too often, the conversations about young adults in the workforce are held without them. Policy consultations, employer panels, skills strategies - the people who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of these decisions are rarely the ones shaping them.
The podcast is a small correction to that. Rebecca and Wilbur are not case studies. They are contributors. Their stories contain more practical insight about what actually helps autistic young adults into employment than most workforce policy documents currently in circulation.
For Inclusive Change, this sits at the heart of what we do: making workplaces that are designed for everyone, not just the narrow band that mainstream systems were built around. Neuro-inclusive change is not a welfare measure. It is a workforce strategy.
Listen, Share, Get Involved
Future Voices Episode One is available now. If you are a young adult who wants to share your story in a future episode, or an employer who wants to be part of the conversation, get in touch.
Future Voices is part of the Youth Guarantee programme at South Gloucestershire Council, delivered through Skills Connect - the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority's one-stop shop for training, skills, and careers.
Inclusive Change | inclusivechange.co.uk
Note for South Gloucestershire Council
The blog accompanies Episode One of Future Voices, produced by Inclusive Change in partnership with the Youth Guarantee programme. It is designed for publication on the Inclusive Change website and social channels, and for sharing with commissioning and programme partners. It may be adapted for the Council's own communications with attribution.
