Evaluation of Experience-Driven Career Support Services for NEET Youth in Community Contexts

Abstract

Informed by three interlocking perspectives, namely, recognition theory, psychosocial resources, and the expanded notion of work, this study evaluated the effectiveness of a career support service project characterized by experience-driven interventions on reengaging a diverse group of youth aged 15–21, who were not in education, employment or training (NEET) in community contexts and on enhancing their psychosocial resources. The results of repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed significant pre- and post-intervention changes of 660 NEET participants in relation to their psychosocial resources encompassing career adaptability, social support and career engagement. All participants reported that they successfully achieved status-based and/or non-status-based recognition over three to six months after case closure. The results of multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) further revealed that the four categories of interventions provided by the project significantly influenced the participants’ composite psychosocial resources when controlling for their gender, educational attainment, length of duration as NEET, presenting problems, and pre-intervention scores. Moreover, the combined package of interest development plus career counseling and guidance ranked the most effective intervention. This study sheds light on developing career support services for NEET youth in diverse community contexts.

Keywords:

• Career counseling and guidance
• community contexts
• interest development
• NEET youth
• psychosocial resources
• recognition

The term NEET originated in the UK in the 1990s (Furlong, 2006) is now globally used for addressing the challenge of an increasing number of youth not in education, employment or training (Bynner & Parsons, 2002; Holte, 2018; Mojsoska-Blazevski et al., 2017). Witnessing the damaging impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the world economy, the World Bank (2019) reported that in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, 11.3% of youth aged 15–24 were NEET in 2022, and the corresponding figure in Hong Kong was even worse at 13%.

Confronting the problem of youth unemployment that could lead to a great cost to the economy in terms of a loss of human resources and an increase of public finance, active labor market policies have been implemented by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government since around early 2000s (Chan & Chan, 2013). Through participation in a package of employment training initiatives embodying different components of pre-employment training, job placement, career guidance, etc. youth participants are expected to enhance their employability and take entry to the labor market as the first priority (Wong & Yip, 2019). The engagement of young people in precarious jobs is, however, interpreted by the HKSAR government as a positive means to facilitate them to gain work experience, and strengthen its overall work-first principle long upheld in policy terms (Wong & Au-Yeung, 2019; 2019). Under the neoliberal rhetoric of promoting youth responsibility in the labor market (Gallie, 2017; Walsh, 2017), the implementation of such activation measures conducive to downplaying the risk of job precariousness caused by structural issues and hostile social discourses behind the NEET problem is contrary to the purpose of promoting youth access to decent work as a sustainable development goal characterized by job stability, security and prospect (OECD, 2018; Pun et al., 2022) and career and life development through the provision of career counseling, guidance and a wide spectrum of intervention programmes at different levels: personal, organizational and policy (Hooley et al., 2017; Hooley et al., 2018; Inter-Agency Working Group on Career Guidance, 2021). Given this background, examination of effective interventions for reengaging NEET youth is still at its early stage.

NEET youth or NEETs as a heterogeneous group are characterized by diverse presenting problems, including seclusion at home, involvement in deviant activities, teenage pregnancy, low educational attainment, and health concerns, etc. (Eurofound, 2016; Stanley et al., 2005; Su et al., 2020a; To et al., 2021; Wong, 2009, 2012, 2015; Wong & Lin, 2016). As far as the length of NEET status is concerned, it can be largely divided into two groups: transitional versus longer-term (Su et al., 2022). Many young people may have a short spell of a few weeks to several months for enjoying a break from transition to college or university, taking up intermittent caring tasks, and pursuing rejuvenation after leaving a boring or stressful job (Hughes & Gration, 2009). The definition of longer-term is different from one country to another, spanning from five months to a year (Dixon, 2013; Su et al., 2021; 2022). Studies have found that the NEET status is also associated with long-lasting psychological effects such as decreased self-confidence, lack of clear goals for future work, life and study, and low motivation (Mendolia & Walker, 2015; Su et al., 2020b; Tamesberger & Bacher, 2014; young people aged below 25 who have experienced a relatively longer duration as NEETs are more likely to endure long-term detriments of ‘scarring effects of unemployment and social exclusion (Brandt & Hank, 2014; Dixon, 2013; Egdell & Beck, 2020; Samoilenko & Carter, 2015; Su et al., 2020b).

Without enjoying a legitimate social status and social recognition as a worker, student or trainee, young people who are deprived of educational credentials and paid work experiences in particular, are facing limited employment choices, increasing job-seeking risks, and uncertain challenges in the labor market, such as low pay, poor job prospect, precarious working conditions, working poverty, and a lack of job autonomy (Wong & Au-Yeung, 2019), as their unpaid work experiences and personal talents were not fully recognized by the mainstream society in developing their aspirations and enhancing their capacity to achieve career aspirations (Su & Wong, 2022a). Against this backdrop, a five-year-long career support service project (2015–2020) funded by a non-governmental organization in Hong Kong, namely, the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust (hereafter the project) was implemented for reaching out a diverse group of NEET youth aged 15–21 with the provision of tailor-made career programmes and interventions in community settings (Wong & Yip, 2019). Refer to the section on introducing the project after addressing the theoretical backdrop of the study.

Although a considerable amount of studies (Brandt & Hank, 2014; Dixon, 2013; Mendolia & Walker, 2015; Samoilenko & Carter, 2015; Su et al., 2020b; Tamesberger & Bacher, 2014) have revealed the hindrances encountered by NEET youth in their career and life development, there exist very few studies examining the efficacy of career support services targeted at this marginalized group. Robertson (2018) conducted a preliminary qualitative study to report the subjective experiences of NEETs in a career intervention programme which is, however, not solid enough to inform developing a holistic intervention model for this marginalized youth group. Informed by the interlocking perspectives of recognition theory, psychosocial resources, and the expanded notion of work, this article aimed to introduce the design of various types of experience-driven interventions of the project and evaluate the effectiveness of these interventions for expanding the sources of self- and social recognition of NEETs and enhancing their psychosocial resources.

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the project by assessing the extent to which the project could a) enhance the psychosocial resources (i.e., career adaptability, social support, and career engagement) of NEET participants, and b) expand their sources of recognition. In view that gender, educational attainment, various presenting problems, length of durations as NEETs, and pre-intervention scores of the variables of concern may affect the vulnerabilities of NEETs (Su et al., 2020a, 2020b; Su & Wong, 2022b), these factors were taken as covariates in the hypotheses of the study.

H1. The experience-driven interventions delivered by the project will significantly enhance the psychosocial resources (i.e., career adaptability, social support, and career engagement) of the NEET participants when controlling for gender, educational attainment, presenting problems, and pre-intervention scores of their psychosocial resources.

H2. The experience-driven interventions delivered by the project will significantly enable the NEET participants to gain status-based/non-status-based recognition within three to six months after case closure.

Context of the study: introducing the project

This project took a critical viewpoint by seeing NEET youth as a matter of marginalization and misrecognition. Such a structural perspective means that social justice and misrecognition is caused by unquestioned norms, beliefs, practices and rules embedded in social discourses and the everyday life of disadvantaged others including NEET youth, rather than by specific individuals (Young, 1990, 2010). This project’s interventions operated at the interface between individuals at the micro or clinical level and organizations and communities at the meso or community level which provided programmes online and offline, and through partnership with multiple stakeholders including parents, mentors, coaches, human resources personnel, frontline managers and workers, employers, etc. to help NEET youth, either transitional or longer-term, to develop their capabilities for work including the elements of values, attitudes, skills and knowledge (Bonvin & Farvaque, 2005; Wong, 2015). Informed by the social work motto of “starting where the client is”, the project also placed a premium on acknowledging youth’s volunteering, provisioning or leisure activities as the base for building up their beginning self-efficacy and psychosocial resources and equally important their individual and shared agency (Su & Wong, 2023) as the core values of a wide spectrum of career interventions.

Specifically, the project delivered four different types of experience-driven intervention programmes: (i) career counseling and guidance, (ii) interest exposures, (iii) interest development, and (iv) workplace learning. All programmes were delivered by practitioners of five service teams of the project throughout Hong Kong, who were social workers with at least 43 hours of two different levels of professional training on career interventions designed and provided by the project chaired by the corresponding author (Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, 2018). Besides social workers, other stakeholders such as mentors and business stakeholders were engaged in the project. Trainings lasting three to six hours had been provided by social workers to the mentors and all business stakeholders before they were engaged in career support services in regard to introducing the challenges facing NEET youth, the objectives and design of the interventions, and some practical skills to work with these young people in different contexts. Service users of this project were recruited by the five service teams in their community service centers.

Considering the vulnerabilities of NEETs from a recognition perspective

The project is informed by two different yet complementary streams of recognition theory respectively developed by Nancy Fraser (1995, 2000, 2007) and Axel Honneth (1995, 2001, 2012). Emphasizing the importance of institutional and structural dimensions, Fraser (2000) used a lens of social status to examine the distribution of social recognition and equal rights of active participation in social structures. According to Fraser’s theory, it is the formal and informal discourses in social structures that are constructing people’s participatory power such as their rights to join in shared-decision making based on their positions, and injustice is therefore amplified by individual’s disadvantages and economic and cultural factors (Fraser et al., 2003; Garrett, 2010). Following the logic of Fraser’s argument, as young people like NEETs are deprived of social recognition due to their vulnerable status, career support services targeting these young people are suggested to thoroughly address social justice by means of promoting recognition, redistribution and representation (Rice, 2018; Su et al., 2021).

Honneth’s recognition theory (Honneth, 1995, 2001, 2012) placed an emphasis on interpreting social recognition in interpersonal interactions. Honneth proposed three forms of social recognition: love, respect and social esteem. Specifically, love refers to care and support from significant others; respect refers to the rights of being treated as an independent and capable person to take part in civil society and societal decisions, and social esteem denotes the recognition of one’s contribution to the community based on one’s unique skills and qualities. According to Honneth, the social recognition enjoyed by individuals are associated with their formulation of self-concepts which denote how people feel, perceive, think, and evaluate themselves: being loved will lead to self-confidence, being respected will foster self-respect, and being esteemed as a valued person will enhance self-esteem. Highlighting an interpersonal perspective, Honneth’s recognition theory may inform the design of an alternative pathway for improving career support services taking NEET youth as the service targets (Su & Wong, 2022a).

The recognition theory has shown its great power in interpreting the marginalization and vulnerabilities of youth with reference to their deprivation of recognition experience and to their limited sources of self- and social recognition, which can help inform the design and delivery of relevant interventions and services (Brezina, 2008; Barry, 2016; Marshall et al., 2020; Su et al., 2021). Using an integrated recognition theory by considering both Fraser’s and Honneth’s perspective to interpret the suffering or marginalization of NEETs, the project highlighted the importance of being sensitive toward the hostility faced by these youth and of expanding their sources of recognition (Dotolo et al., 2018; Su et al., 2020a; Su et al., 2020b; Su et al., 2021). First, the community-based research team of the project (Su et al., 2020a, 2020b) took note that NEET participants are not accessible to status-based social recognition in Hong Kong, where the mainstream society has put a premium on educational credentials and paid work experiences. In Hong Kong, NEETs are misrecognized or disrespected by their family, friends, and the public at large for not being able to demonstrate grit or making contributions to the community (Horiguchi, 2018; Su et al., 2020a, 2020b). Second, the prolonged NEET status is more likely to be taken as family or societal burdens (Su & Wong, 2020b). Third, the social discourse internalized by the NEETs to negatively perceive themselves and demoralize the meaning of what they have been doing can exacerbate their low self-worth and poor relationship with others (Su & Wong, 2022a). Finally, the project also found that the NEET status is jeopardizing the capability of young people to expand their sources of recognition favorable for developing their psychosocial resources (Su & Wong, 2022b; Su et al., 2020b).

Psychosocial resources such as career adaptability, social support and career engagement are deemed important for making a successful career and life transition (Savickas, 2013; Savickas & Porfeli, 2012; Su et al., 2020a, 2020b). Career adaptability is a psychosocial construct comprising of four dimensions: concern, curiosity, control, and confidence. Concern is concerned about one’s future and one’s awareness of the influence one’s choices will have; control considers the responsibilities the individuals think they are ready for; curiosity is concerned with one’s willingness to discover and explore the environment; and finally, confidence is about the belief or trust of a person in one’s own strengths or abilities (Savickas, 2005). Social support defined as a type of psychosocial resources refers to the informal and formal care and support that young people receive from significant others and helping professionals in the form of emotional, instrumental, or informational assistance for coping with challenges confronted in career transition (Rottinghaus et al., 2012; Mallinckrodt & Leong, 1992). Career engagement refers to the degree to which individuals have taken various proactive behaviors to develop their career (Hirschi et al., 2014). Career engagement conceptualized as psychosocial resources is conducive to enhancing career management and career satisfaction (Hirschi & Jaensch, 2015).

Before receiving interventions, the NEET status was hindering young people’s development of psychosocial resources in three ways: first, the NEET status is distancing young people from developing a promising resume of paid work experiences and education, which is recognized as being essential for developing psychosocial resources. Second, their psychosocial resources developed through participating in unpaid work or leisure activities are under-recognized if not misrecognized by the public and even by themselves, which will in turn demotivate their engagement in these activities. Having a NEET status without enjoying the ability to build up an impressive CV does not imply that disadvantaged youth do not have their own voluntary participation in other learning and leisure activities such as e-sports, street dancing, graffiti, magic, x-games, theater performance, etc., but unfortunately, all these are either under-recognized or misrecognized by both parents and the mainstream society as either being unhelpful to their CV building or strengthening their psychosocial resources for their sustainable career and life development (Su & Chan, 2023; Wong & Yip, 2019). Last but not least, although some NEETs may find a way to reengage in the world of work, it is still hard for them to be offered a decent work opportunity with safe working conditions, access to health care, adequate compensation, free time and rest, and complementary values (Duffy et al., 2017) as their unemployment history is usually questioned by human resources officers with regard to their employability and their capacity to make significant contributions to their employers. It is difficult for NEETs to transition to decent work by their own autonomous or agentic actions if support from different stakeholders such as parents, employers and mentors is not available (Egdell & McQuaid, 2016).

Expanding work experiences for enhancing psychosocial resources and promoting recognition

Based on a critique of the social discourses overemphasizing the value of paid work experiences and overlooking the importance of unpaid work for the sustainable development of youth (Addati et al., 2018; International Labor Organization, 2017), Wong (2015) deliberately expanded the notion of work to expand their sources of recognition and to enhance their psychosocial resources. According to Wong (2015), the expanded notion of work encompasses both paid and unpaid work activities. Paid work is of two categories, namely, (a) employment and entrepreneurship, and (b) work trials, paid internship, and trial-run business. The world of unpaid work is categorized into four, namely, (a) vocational education and training, and other work exposure programmes, (b) volunteering activities delivered in organizational settings, (c) provisioning undertaken in non-organizational contexts and delivered on a voluntary or obligatory basis such as self-care, family care, pet care and neighborhood care, and finally d) serious leisure theorized as an intensive and committed pursuit of a leisure-time activity (Stebbins, 2017) such as street dancing, cosplay, online gaming, and music busking. This expanded understanding of work shows that both formal and informal economic activities are the constituent and transferable elements of the holistic landscape of work and work experiences (Watts et al., 2015; Wong, 2015; Wong & Yip, 2019).

Expanding the notion of work encompassing both paid and unpaid work activities can help expand the sources of recognition available to young people, as their talents in volunteering, provisioning and leisure endeavors are considered transferable from one domain of work to another without risking being under-recognized or misrecognized. If longer-term NEET youth in particular are not outreached in a thorough and effective manner, they would be further deskilled, misrecognized, stigmatized and marginalized with respect to a wide spectrum of positive career and life development features such as recognition, exposures, experience, social interactions, resources, opportunities and networks, to name a few (Su & Wong, 2022a, 2022b) which is far from achieving the purpose of career guidance and promoting decent work in a sustainable manner by taking social justice and emancipation as an important agenda for contesting neoliberalism and reclaiming social justice for the multitude in a globalized world characterized by increasing levels of risks and uncertainties (Hooley et al., 2017; Hooley et al., 2018).

Theoretically speaking, the interlocking perspectives of recognition theory, psychosocial resources, and the expanded notion of work can be integrated to inform the design of career support services for reengaging NEETs due to the following reasons: first, as the recognition theory suggests the importance of distributing and redistributing social recognition for the sake of promoting social justice in career guidance and counseling (Rice, 2018), to acknowledge and validate NEETs’ diverse work experiences can undoubtably enhance the social recognition accorded to this marginalized group. Second, to socially recognize the psychosocial resources that NEETs develop through participating in expanded work experiences may help strengthen their capacity to adapt to life changes, to seek social support, and to reengage in the society (Su et al., 2021). Third, such an approach can help reduce the hostile social discourse against young people and decrease the social conflicts between young people and other stakeholders by seeing the contributions made by these young people in different work domains (Su & Wong, 2022b). Forth, this approach may draw more attention to the roles played by the environment and promote societal changes to engage NEETs in various types of work (Su & Wong, 2022b). Finally, this approach is capable of creating more space to the exercise of the agency and shared agency of NEETs in choosing their preferred career pathways (Su & Wong, 2022b).

A mix of interventions provided by the project

Informed by the interlocking perspective of recognition psychosocial resources and the expanded notion of work, the project developed experience-driven interventions considered practical for delivering career support services for different NEET youth groups in community settings (Wong & Yip, 2019; Su & Wong, 2022b). Different intervention programs were designed to serve different purposes. Specifically, career counseling and guidance was focused on reviewing with the participants their paid and unpaid work experiences, acknowledging their strengths and abilities, and using some participatory tools such as a tailor-made functional resume to archive their experiences and transferable values, attitudes, skills, and knowledge with a purpose to enable them to reconstruct their life stories. Interest exposures provided participants with opportunities to get a taste of different types of interest activities all by their own choice without making any commitment including attending one-off or short-term handicraft workshops, music busking, physical exercises, e-sports, eco-tours, etc.; whereas interest development was targeted at a specific type of interest activity with more in-depth learning experiences about a certain interest, trade, or industry. Mentors who were knowledgeable and skillful in certain interest activities were engaged in delivering interest development programmes to the participants. Workplace learning was providing the participants an opportunity to work for a few days or up to two weeks with pay (Su & Wong, 2020a). Different business stakeholders were engaged by social workers of the project in designing and delivering workplace learning. Personnel officers interviewed the participants and assigned the latter to different frontline positions in their company with reference to the interest and abilities of the participants and the demands of specific job positions; frontline trainers provided trial work trainings to the participants by sharing product- and service-related knowledge and task-related skills; operational managers monitored and supervised the job performance of the participants.

There were a mix of these four different types of intervention programmes delivered by social workers in accordance to each user’s preferences and needs. It turned out that four major categories of experience-driven interventions were used by the participants as follows. Category 1 is merely the provision of career counseling and guidance; Category 2 is a mix of interest development and career counseling and guidance; Category 3 is a mix of workplace learning and career counseling and guidance; and finally, Category 4 is a mix of interest exposures, workplace learning, and career counseling and guidance. Career counseling and guidance used in Category 1 emphasizes acknowledging and consolidating participants’ prior and current experiences in different life domains, whereas career counseling and guidance in Categories 2, 3, and 4 are focused on reviewing their user experience and its impact generated through joining interest exposures, interest development and/or workplace learning during the whole user journey (Su & Wong, 2020b) (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Major categories of interventions under the experience-driven framework.

Method

Research participants

All of the research participants were service users of the project, who were all NEETs when they started their user journey. Table 1 presents the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants (n = 660). All of the participants were aged 15–21 (M_age = 18.10, SD_age = 1.46) of which 57.7% were men and 42.3% women. The mean of their length of duration as NEETs ranged from 0.5 to 84 months (Mean = 2.84 months, SD = 4.49). The educational level of most participants (i.e., 77.60%) were senior secondary school or equivalent. Regarding the major presenting problems confronted in career and life development, 70.5% of the participants reported no clear goals for work, study, and life, and 20.3% reported self-perceived limitations in personal abilities.

Table 1. Socio-demographic characteristics of participants.

Basic information	Research Participants (n = 660)
	N/Mean (%/SD)
Gender
Male	381 (57.70)
Female	279 (42.30)
Age	18.10 (1.46)
Educational attainment
Primary 6 or below	2 (.30)
Secondary 1	13 (2.00)
Secondary 2	18 (2.70)
Secondary 3	39 (5.90)
Secondary 4	12 (1.80)
Secondary 5	40 (6.10)
Secondary 6 or equivalent	512 (77.60)
Post-secondary	21 (3.20)
Undergraduate degree or above	3 (.50)
Duration as NEET (0.5 – 84 months)	2.84 (4.49)
Presenting problems
Seclusion at home	14 (2.10)
Involvement in deviant activities	6 (.90)
Suffering from health problems	10 (1.50)
lack of clear goals for work, study, and life	465 (70.50)
limitation of personal abilities	134 (20.30)
Disabling family and social factors	16 (2.40)
Unspecified problems encountered	15 (2.30)
No presenting problems	0 (0)

Measures

Career adaptability was measured by the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS)-China Form (Hou et al., 2012). The CAAS-China form consists of 24 items and every six items measured each of the following four dimensions in the scale: concern, curiosity, control, and confidence. The participants were asked to indicate their career adaptability on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). A higher score indicated a higher level of career adaptability. The Cronbach’s alpha of CAAS-China form with NEET sample is .95.

Social support was measured by four items derived from the Career Future Inventory-Revised (CFI-R) which was originally developed by Rottinghaus et al. (2012). These four items assess the perceived support individuals receive from significant others. Answers were provided on a 5-point Likert-type scale. The Cronbach’s alpha of this scale with NEET sample is .80.

Career engagement was measured by the Chinese version of the career engagement scale (Su et al., 2020b) which was originally developed by Hirschi et al. (2014). This scale assesses the general degree to which a person has demonstrated various proactive behaviors to develop his or her career in the past six months. The career engagement scale consists of nine items: three items describe career management activities in general terms e.g. worked to advance one’s career, while the other six items tap into career management behaviors in terms of career planning, self- and environmental-exploration, networking, positioning behavior, and voluntary training. Answers were provided on a 5-point Likert-type scale. The Cronbach’s alpha of this scale with NEET sample is .89.

Covariates were measured in the following ways: gender was reported by the participants as male versus female; the length of duration as NEETs was reported in the unit of months; participants were asked to select their presenting problems among nine options as presented in Table 1; the pre- and post-intervention status and achieved sources of recognition was reported by the participants themselves and confirmed by their social workers by selecting from the following options: 1) NEET without any status-based or non-status-based recognition for at least 14 consecutive days; 2) EET (i.e. NEET counterparts) with status-based recognition, i.e., student, employee or trainee, and 3) NEET with non-status-based recognition, i.e., carer or caregiver such as young mother, volunteer, mentor, social activist, or serious leisure devotee. Participants’ enrollment in the four categories of interventions was reported by the practitioners as yes = 1 and no = 0.

Research design

The research team of the project designed pre- and post-intervention questionnaires for measuring the extent to which the service users could make a change in career-related psychosocial resources and in expanding sources of recognition after going through career interventions delivered in community settings. Prior to the study, ethical approval was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee (REC) of the University where the corresponding author is affiliated with. Participants were invited to fill in questionnaires via the system of Qualtrics.

In total, 660 participants completed the research-related documents comprising face-sheets, pre- and post-intervention questionnaires and case-closing forms. The face-sheet recorded their socio-demographic information and their pre-intervention status and perceived sources of recognition. The pre- and post-intervention questionnaires were designed to measure their psychosocial resources encompassing career adaptability, social support, and career engagement. The case-closing forms documented their post-intervention status and perceived sources of recognition within three to six months after case closure. The face-sheets, pre- and post-intervention questionnaires, and case-closing forms were conducted in a self-reported manner. Starting from January 2019, the project invited the practitioners to record the participants’ joining in different types of interventions by filling in an intervention record form. Among the 1,593 NEET participants as service users at different time points between January 2019 and June 2020, there was a subgroup of 660 participants whose participation in the four categories of intervention were reported by their practitioners during the period starting from April 2019 till May 2020: 163 participants were involved in the intervention of Category 1, 367 in Category 2, 43 in Category 3, and 87 in Category 4. The intervention record forms filled in by social workers were sent back to the participants for their comments, if any, and approval before conducting data analysis.

Data analysis

Firstly, one-way ANOVA was conducted to test the differences in pre-intervention psychosocial recourses by gender, educational attainment, length of duration as NEETs, and presenting problems to test whether these variables are associated with NEET participants’ psychosocial resources. Secondly, repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to examine the pre- and post-intervention changes in the three types of psychosocial resources by controlling for gender, educational attainment, length of duration as NEETs, and presenting problems. Third, MANCOVA and Underlying Univariate ANCOVAs of post-intervention scores on career adaptability, social support, and career engagement by groups of intervention categories using gender, educational attainment, length of duration as NEETs, presenting problems, and pre-intervention scores of psychosocial resources as covariates were conducted to test hypothesis 1. Finally, the pre- and post-intervention status and sources of recognition was compared in a descriptive manner to test hypothesis 2.

Results

The results of ANOVA as shown in Table 2 suggested that the pre-intervention psychosocial resources are significantly influenced by educational attainment, length of duration as NEETs, and presenting problems. Therefore, it is necessarily to take these factors as covariates for testing the effectiveness of the interventions. Table 3 presents the significant changes of participants in their three types of psychosocial resources before and after joining the project. Career adaptability, social support and career engagement of the participants are significantly enhanced after joining the project.

Table 2. Pre-intervention comparison of NEET participants in psychosocial resources with regard to their gender, educational attainment, length of duration as NEETs, and presenting problems (n = 660).

	CAAS Mean (SD)	F	Support Mean (SD)	F	Career engagement Mean (SD)	F
Gender		2.51		.34		2.04
Female	3.57 (.53)		3.40 (.62)		3.21 (.65)
Male	3.62 (.57)		3.31 (.65)		3.22 (.71)
Educational attainment		3.09**		2.27*		2.71**
Primary six or below	3.56 (.29)		2.88 (.88)		3.17 (.08)
Secondary 1	3.22 (.31)		2.96 (.78)		2.68 (.48)
Secondary 2	3.38 (.57)		3.04 (.54)		2.98 (.73)
Secondary 3	3.30 (.82)		3.18 (.71)		2.96 (.74)
Secondary 4	3.44 (.63)		3.40 (1.11)		3.01 (.92)
Secondary 5	3.65 (.52)		3.31 (.71)		3.14 (.64)
Secondary 6 or seven	3.64 (.53)		3.39 (.61)		3.27 (.67)
Post-secondary	3.55 (.43)		3.17 (.62)		3.07 (.61)
Undergraduate degree or above	3.38 (.26)		3.75 (.43)		3.44 (1.06)
Length of duration as NEETs		−.16***		−.15****		−.09*
Presenting problems		1.36		2.32*		1.63
Seclusion at home	3.31 (.53)		3.11 (.70)		2.80 (.80)
Involvement in deviant activities	3.49 (.76)		3.29 (1.04)		2.91 (.70)
Suffering from health problems	3.64 (.50)		3.78 (.49)		3.22 (.91)
No clear goals for work, study & life	3.61 (.55)		3.34 (.62)		3.21 (.69)
Limitation of abilities	3.65 (.53)		3.42 (.62)		3.30 (.60)
Disabling family and social factors	3.33 (.60)		3.08 (.84)		3.30 (.84)
Unspecified problems	3.52 (.66)		3.10 (.72)		3.01 (.75)

Table 3. Repeated measures ANOVA of psychosocial resources by controlling for gender, educational attainment, length of duration as NEETs, and presenting problems. (n = 660).

	Pre-intervention Mean (SD)	Post-intervention Mean (SD)	Wilks’ lambda	F	df	Error df	p	Partial Eta Squared
Career adaptability	3.60 (.02)	3.92 (.02)	.78	185.00	1	644	.000	.22
Social support	3.35 (.03)	3.73 (.03)	.79	170.63	1	652	.000	.21
Career engagement	3.21 (.03)	3.69 (.03)	.73	240.37	1	647	.000	.27

The results of MANCOVA presented in Table 4 suggested that the NEET participants’ post-intervention composite psychosocial resources encompassing career adaptability, social support, and career engagement were significantly enhanced by the four categories of interventions when controlling for the covariates of gender, educational attainment, length of duration as NEETs, presenting problems, and pre-intervention scores of psychosocial resources (p = 0.001; η²=0.02). Moreover, the results of the underlying univariate ANCOVAs showed that each type of psychosocial resources was significantly enhanced by the four categories of interventions (i.e. Category 1 as merely the provision of career counseling and guidance; Category 2 as a mix of interest development and career counseling and guidance; Category 3 as a mix of workplace learning and career counseling and guidance; and Category 4 as a mix of interest exposures, workplace learning, and career counseling and guidance) when controlling for the covariates of gender, educational attainment, length of duration as NEETs, presenting problems, and pre-intervention scores of psychosocial resources. Therefore, hypothesis 1 was supported.

Table 4. MANCOVA and Underlying Univariate ANCOVAs of post-intervention scores on career adaptability, social support, and career engagement by groups of interventions (n = 660).

MANCOVA	Pillai’s trace	F	df	Error df	p	Partial eta squared
Post-intervention composite psychosocial resources	.05	3.19	9.00	1890.00	.001	.02

Univariate ANCOVAs

Dependent variables	df	F	sig^b	Partial eta squared	Categories of interventions	Means^a	95% confidence interval^b
Post-intervention career adaptability							Lower bound	Upper bound
	3	5.68	.000	.03	Category 1	3.84	3.76	3.91
					Category 2	3.99	3.94	4.04
					Category 3	3.73	3.57	3.88
					Category 4	3.90	3.79	4.01
Post-intervention social support	3	3.39	.018	.02	Category 1	3.63	3.54	3.72
					Category 2	3.79	3.74	3.85
					Category 3	3.69	3.52	3.87
					Category 4	3.68	3.56	3.80
Post-intervention career engagement	3	4.38	.005	.02	Category 1	3.54	3.44	3.65
					Category 2	3.77	3.70	3.83
					Category 3	3.63	3.43	3.83
					Category 4	3.67	3.53	3.80

a. Covariate-adjusted means using pretest scores of psychosocial resources, gender, educational attainment, length of duration as NEETs, and presenting problems as covariates. b. Using Bonferroni’s correction to evaluate the significance of differences in means for the dependent variables, so the significant level for post- social support is .025 and for post-career engagement is .017.

Overall speaking, when controlling for covariates, the intervention of Category 2 ranked the most effective one for predicting the highest means of the NEET participants’ post-intervention scores in three types of psychosocial resources; Category 1 ranked the least effective intervention for predicting the lowest means of post-intervention scores in social support and career engagement. Specifically, in terms of predicting the means of post-intervention scores in career adaptability, the interventions of Category 1, Categories 2 and 4 were more effective than Category 3. About predicting the means of post-intervention scores in social support, the interventions of Categories 2, 3 and 4 were more favorable than Category 1. Regarding predicting the means of post-intervention scores in career engagement, the interventions of Categories 2 and 4 were more favorable than Categories 1 and Category 3.

Table 5 presents the pre- and post-intervention status and perceived sources of recognition among the participants. After receiving the interventions, all participants achieved a status-based or non-status-based recognition. Specifically, 73% of the participants achieved only status-based recognition as they became students, employees or trainees; 2.1% of participants remained as NEET, yet they achieved self-recognition by taking up the role as a carer, volunteer, mentor, social activist, or serious leisure devotee; and 23.5% of the participants achieved both status-based recognition and non-status-based recognition. Only 1.4% of the participants remained in their NEET status and acquired no status-based or non-status-based recognition. Compared with the status and sources of recognition of the participants before receiving the services, the pre- and post- changes in status and sources of recognition were obvious and thus hypothesis 2 was supported.

Table 5. Pre- and post-intervention status and sources of recognition.

Pre-intervention	N	%
NEET without status-based or non-status-based recognition	660	100
Post-intervention	N	%
Achievement of recognition	660	100
EET with only status-based recognition	482	73.0
NEET with only non-status-based recognition	14	2.10
EET with both status-based and non-status-based recognition	155	23.50
NEET without status-based or non-status-based recognition	9	1.40

Note. Sources of status-based recognition refer to students, employees or trainees; sources of non-status-based recognition refer to carers, volunteers, mentors, social activists or serious leisure devotees.

Discussion

Using a sample of NEET participants in a career support service project delivered in diverse community settings in Hong Kong, this is the first ever study that evaluated the efficacy of experience-driven career interventions targeted at this specific group of youth at risk. The findings of our study will support the application of three interlocking perspectives of recognition theory psychosocial resources and the expanded notion of work in developing and evaluating career support services targeted at a diverse group of NEET youth in different community contexts, and inform the development of policy measures which favor the construction of an enabling environment for supporting marginalized youth to have access to expanding sources of recognition and multiple pathways for enhancing their psychosocial resources. First, the findings of this study revealed that the psychosocial resources of NEET participants were significantly enhanced after receiving the experience-driven interventions delivered by the project when controlling for the effects of gender, educational attainment, length of durations as NEETs, presenting problems, and pre-intervention scores in psychosocial resources. The findings of the study suggested that experience-driven interventions encompassing both paid and unpaid work activities with support from social workers could acknowledge and enhance these psychosocial resources of participants, which were unfortunately under-recognized if not misrecognized by themselves and their significant others and multiple stakeholders in the community. These findings are consistent with another study (Su et al., 2021), examining the experience-driven framework for reengaging marginalized youth with prolonged self-seclusion experience at home, who are largely hidden from both public and professional intervention (Wong, 2009; Wong & Yip, 2019; Yuen et al., 2018, 2019), which revealed that these hard-to-reach-out youth clients could rebuild their social connection with others and had their self-efficacy enhanced through participating in paid and unpaid work activities with help from social workers. The findings of this study have shown that the experience-driven framework appears applicable to the heterogeneous group of NEETs with various presenting problems such as youth with self-seclusion experience, young mothers, ethnic minority youth, longer-term NEETs, etc.; the findings will also inform future studies to apply the framework to other youth populations whose psychosocial resources are constrained by their lack of an EET status or a resume of good level of qualifications, credentials and workplace experiences. Moreover, upon a conclusive understanding drawn by a meta-analysis (Su & Chan, 2023) that people’s psychosocial resources are moderately associated with their access to decent work, the effective interventions evidenced by this study will inform future research and practice for empowering marginalized youth for constructing their sustainable career and life development.

Second, this study has revealed that the experience-driven interventions offered by the project could manage to expand the sources of recognition among NEET youth characterized by diversity and heterogeneity. Before joining the project, NEET youth were under-recognized or ‘misrecognized’ (Fraser et al., 2003) by the hostile social discourses in a way of being denied of their capacity to make contribution to the society. Even the NEET youth themselves tended to devalue their own competencies, as they were not able to build up a CV that they felt proud of sending out to employers or educational/training institutions for transitioning to a privileged social status as an EET youth (Su & Wong, 2020b). Using the four categories of experience-driven interventions, the project enabled 94% of NEET participants to achieve status-based recognition as being a student, employee, or trainee, and 22.5% achieve non-status-based recognition as being a carer, volunteer, mentor, social activist, or serious leisure devotee, and 19.1% achieve both status-based and non-status-based recognition. These findings echoed the existing studies (Barry, 2016; Brezina, 2008; Marshall et al., 2020; Su et al., 2021) by means of supporting the capacity of the recognition theory to interpret the experiences and vulnerabilities of marginalized youth. Moreover, the findings of the study have shown the capacity of recognition theory incorporated with the expanded notion of work model to inform the design and evaluation of youth services and career support services in diverse community settings.

Another important finding of the study is about the differential effects of the four categories of experience-driven interventions of the project. Generally, the intervention of Category 2 ranked the most effective intervention in enhancing three types of psychosocial resources; Category 1 ranked the least effective in enhancing social support and career engagement. Categories 1, 2, and 4 performed better than Category 3 with regard to enhancing career adaptability in NEET participants; Categories 2, 3 and 4 performed better than Category 1 with regard to enhancing social support, and Categories 2 and 4 performed better than 1 and 3 with regard to enhancing work engagement. These findings are particularly important for informing future career intervention design and evaluation.

Regarding the enhancement in career adaptability, the results that participants of Category 3 reported the lowest magnitude of improvement may relate to the fact that intensive engagement in paid work experiences and interactions with employers and business stakeholders such as frontline trainers and personnel officers in workplace learning may lead to their critical self-reflection about their own limitations and the room for self-improvement (see Hulsbos et al., 2016; van Loon, 2019). Relatively, participants may have their confidence and control enhanced by participating in interest development which will provide them the chances to experience some kind of success (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), and receiving strength-based career guidance and counseling (Littman-Ovadia et al., 2014). Regarding development in social support, Category 1 performing less satisfactory than other categories may relate to the fact that no exposures to new paid or unpaid work activities were provided in Category 1, such as interest exposures, interest development, and workplace learning. Without such exposures and their subsequent review experience with helping professionals and/or other community stakeholders, it is difficult for users to enhance their capability to do self-reflection and to proactively seek social support in their career and life development journey ahead (Su & Wong, 2020b, 2022). Finally, regarding development in career engagement, Categories 2 and 4 performed better than Category 3. Such a result may be explained by the reason that merely undertaking a workplace learning practicum or two but without a significant level of self-reflection or in-depth reviews with others may limit the scope and variety of users’ exposures and experiences during and beyond their user journey (Su & Wong, 2020b).

Considering the discussion on differential effects of the four categories of experience-driven interventions mentioned above, two suggestions may be drawn for career support services targeting NEET participants: first, it is recommended to provide NEET participants with both paid and unpaid work experiences for supporting their career and life development in a sustainable manner. Through joining unpaid work and volunteering activities, such as interest exposures and interest development, and paid work activities, such as workplace learning, NEET participants are more likely to achieve higher levels of composite psychosocial resources, which can help enhance their self- and social recognition as a solid basis for furthering self-growth and development and making contribution to others. Second, in view that practitioners are usually working under limited timeframes and resources, it is suggested to best utilize their service time to choose the most effective type of interventions to support their service users based on a thorough understanding of the needs of their users including the length of their NEET status and their consensus on enhancing prioritized psychosocial resources of the service users. Having said that, professional trainings should be provided to practitioners to enhance their efficacy in applying various types of interventions in different contexts.

Limitations

This study has its three limitations that we cannot afford to overlook. First, the study only evaluated the efficacy of the interventions among a group of NEET participants with different types of presenting problems. Although some covariates were controlled in this study, more rigorous research design with comparison or control group(s) or using randomized controlled trials conducted on a longitudinal basis are strongly recommended for future studies in order to draw more definite conclusions. Second, the project was implemented before the full effects of Covid-19 pandemic globally, the findings of this study may not be able to address how the pandemic influences the efficacy of the project. Finally, we only had 41% of the service users receiving any type or mix of experience-driven intervention programmes in the specified period detailed in an intervention record filled in by corresponding practitioners, which may lead to concerns regarding the efficacy of the project for those service users without the availability of whole set of research-related documents for evaluation purpose. Yet the overall findings of this study will inform the design of more rigorous and longitudinal research on the tremendously important topic of facilitating disadvantaged youth transitions to employment (Hart et al., 2020; Sanderson, 2020).

Conclusion

To conclude, this is the first ever study that has supported the efficacy of a comprehensive package of experience-driven intervention programmes consisting of a different mix of counseling and guidance, interest exposure, interest development, and workplace learning for NEET youth in community settings by controlling for the effects of some important covariates (i.e. gender, educational attainment, length of duration as NEETs, and presenting problems) for evaluating the pre- and post-intervention changes of the participants regarding their psychosocial resources and examining the differential effects of four categories of experience-driven interventions. The findings of the study have drawn important implications for applying the recognition theory and the expanded notion of work for designing, delivering and evaluating career support services targeted at NEETs in diverse community contexts. Future research studies using more rigorous research designs such with comparison or control group(s) or using randomized controlled trials conducted on a longitudinal basis are needed to provide stronger evidence to support this type of career support services targeting marginalized youth. Moreover, endeavors are suggested to be pursued at organizational, policy and research levels to develop measures and programmes favorable for the construction of an enabling environment to offer marginalized youth an access to expanded sources of recognition and multiple pathways for enhancing their psychosocial resources.

Compliance with ethical standards & informed consent

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Research Ethics Committee of Hong Kong Baptist University and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Disclaimer

The authors declare that the views expressed in the submitted article are their own and not an official position of the institution or funder.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust for the funding support for this study [HKBU/HKJCCT/14-15/012].

Access to data

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.