Sophie Maxwell (now aged 27) founded the Really NEET College in March 2011. Prior to that, she had successfully beaten her previous NEET status aged 14-16, overcoming homelessness aged 16-18, she went on to study first at Norton College to then go onto Sheffield Hallam to graduate in Leisure Events Management in 2009. Whilst studying at Sheffield Hallam University Sophie set up her social business AW Education which gets teenagers engaging positively with education again through engaging, practical sessions aiding both personal and social development. She has worked with hundreds of young people and has run over twenty engagement projects across South Yorkshire, projects included; environmentally friendly fashion shows that were inter-generational, tough guy challenges with scrap cars as obstacles and founding community choirs, which in 2010 led to her winning two national ‘Crisis – Changing Lives’ Awards including the Linklater prize for Enterprise. She is a credible role model that any young person can relate to and be inspired by. She was also awarded the High Sheriff Award for; 'valuable and devoted services to the community'. Sophie has also just won 'most disruptive idea' at Prince Andrew's Pitch at the Palace event! Sophie found she was engaging the young people, but felt they needed longer term more intensive support and nurturing. After spending many hours of her own time having informal mentoring sessions in the community, she set up The Really NEET College. Her vision was to have a college where young people who didn't want to go to mainstream college for a variety of reasons could come and learn social entrepreneurship, Maths, English and Art in a safe environment that left them inspired and full of energy and passion for life. A place which transformed disadvantaged young people into entrepreneurs. This ‘journey’ included in many cases helping young people overcome social barriers, psychological barriers, substance issues, gang issues and many other unique personal issues. She has challenged some of Sheffield’s hardest to reach young people, engaging them in projects in their own communities with a great success rate. She believes her success has been as a result of where ever possible engaging the entire family in the project. Our main programme is a 37 week course, we currently have 40 young people on that programme, the programme includes a two day residential to the Lake District and 4 business challenges including; Exchange made, making a business leader homeless for a day and a night with the young people capturing the footage, interviewing local entrepreneurs in the Heat Chair, Hell's Kitchen Challenge and battle of the bands where the young people had to create a theme song based on a social issue. We have also won a National Lottery contract called Talent Match which takes us back out into the communities mentoring young people who are furthest away from the job market. We have a further 50 young people on this scheme. We have created a unique mentoring scheme that aims to engage young people into a Passion Activity of their choice, this could be anything from Kick boxing, swimming, music studio time, football, arts etc. We also work one-on-one with the young person to overcome any issues they may be going from, barriers such as substance misuse, mental health problems, homelessness, problems with benefits with the end goal being for them to access some form of education, training or employment. Our final contract is with the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust, this is an exciting project that we are piloting in Sheffield this summer. The programme is called 'Get on Track' and involves us working with world class athletes to deliver a sports programme to young people that are classified by the goverment as being NEET! Sophie’s vision for the future is to have a Really NEET College in every town and city in the UK.