You’re Fried! The Realities of Youth Employment with Birmingham City Council

We are a group of young people (14–17 years old) from across the West Midlands, and we’ve created a play based on our lived experiences of trying to access work experience, navigating career choices and building the skills we need to get good employment. Low-paid jobs, lack of support, and barriers to meaningful work placements—sound familiar?

On March 24, 2025, we performed “You’re Fried: the Realities of Youth Employment” for the first time. But this wasn’t just a play—it was a Legislative Theatre event where the audience and a team of policymakers from the West Midlands helped us co-create real policy proposals.

Now we’re back. On July 1st, we’re inviting you to take part in the next round - 4.30-7.30pm South and City College, Digbeth campus.

🤝 How did we get here?

This work is part of the INSPIRE project, and we partnered with:

• Young Combined Authority, who identified youth employment as a top priority

• Youth Focus West Midlands, who helped ground this work in our communities

Fifteen of us took part in this Legislative Theatre journey, led by practitioners Sam Dixon and Lee Grant, with help from their mentor Katy Rubin. Sonia Bussu (Inspire PI), Dena Arya, Rosanna Wilson and Susy Higueras (University of Birmingham) support the participatory evaluation of the process to make sure it leads to real learning and change. Nadia Nadesan and Olivier Schulbaum from the Platoniq Foundation support the digitalisation of the process.

Here’s what we’re calling for:
🧒🏽 Start career support early—talk to us and our families from primary school.
📍 Make career advice available where we actually go—like youth centres and libraries.
💪🏾 Give us proper work experience—with mentors, real roles, and no more being coffee-fetchers.