Communications consultancy Foco has been appointed by Projects with Purpose (PwP) to map the online behaviours of young people on behalf of West Berkshire Council and Reading Borough Council as part of their ‘Elevate’ project.

PwP works with public and third sector organisations to improve outcomes for disadvantaged communities. The social enterprise has brought in Foco to conduct the UK’s first online mapping of youth unemployment issues in a local authority area. Foco’s research will help PwP understand how young people use social media in order to improve engagement and boost employment prospects across West Berkshire and Reading.

John Shewell, co-founder of Foco, says, “We’re really proud to be involved with such an important project. Youth unemployment is a big issue facing the country, so we’re really excited to use our approach for gathering deep insights about audiences to help Berkshire achieve its objectives.”

Maxine Moss-Black, co-founder and director of PwP, adds, “This is an exciting and innovative project that has the potential to be a game-changer in boosting youth employment across the UK, which is why we brought in Foco to work on the project. The team at Foco have significant experience in delivering successful behaviour change campaigns and we were impressed with their robust approach to understanding and mapping online patterns of behaviours. We know that young people spend a lot of time online so we felt it was important to understand what they were doing on social media, which hasn’t been properly understood within the context of youth employment and we felt that Foco brings a depth of expertise that will really add value to the whole project.”