We aim to broaden horizons and open up future pathways for teenage girls aged 14-18.
Through engaging, interactive career days, we connect young people with professionals, mentors, and role models to help them explore opportunities, build confidence, and develop the skills they need for life beyond school.
The programme is built to ensure that every girl, regardless of background or location, has access to the networks, exposure, and support needed to shape a confident and informed future.
Across the UK, many teenage girls are reaching a pivotal stage in their lives without equal access to opportunity, guidance, and networks that can help shape their future.
For girls aged 14-18, particularly in underserved and highly deprived communities, access to career insight, professional role models, and meaningful exposure to different pathways is often limited. Too many young people are unaware of the breadth of opportunities available beyond school, and even fewer have direct access to professionals who can help them explore, question, and develop their ambitions.
This lack of exposure can have a direct impact on confidence, aspiration, and long-term outcomes. Without the chance to build networks, explore careers, and develop key skills, many girls are left without the tools or belief to fully understand what is possible for them or how to take the next steps.
At this age, young people need three core things to thrive: network, exposure, and skills. They need access to mentors and peers who can support and guide them, opportunities to explore a wide range of careers and pathways, and space to develop the practical skills that build confidence and future readiness. Too often, these opportunities are not equally available.
The Need
Our Careers Days are designed to broaden horizons, build confidence, and inspire future ambitions for girls aged 14-18. Through interactive workshops and engaging skills sessions, participants connect with professionals and industry experts from a diverse range of sectors, gaining valuable insights into potential career pathways. These sessions are designed to deliver three key outcomes:
Our Response
Network and Awareness
We help young people build meaningful connections with mentors, professionals, and peers, creating relationships that can support and guide them beyond the session itself.
We provide direct access to a wide variety of industries and career pathways, both on and off the field, helping girls understand the full range of possibilities available to them.
Exposure
We enable young people to develop practical, transferable skills such as communication, teamwork, confidence, and self-presentation, supporting both personal and professional growth. Alongside inspiration, each career day is designed to be practical and engaging, ensuring young people leave with greater clarity, confidence, and connection to their future. We are focused on expanding our reach beyond London into the Midlands, the North, and other underserved regions across the UK, prioritising communities where opportunities are most limited and where dropout rates from sport and extracurricular activities are highest.
Skills
We aim to:
● Expand access to professional networks, mentors, and career pathways for young people from disadvantaged and underserved communities who would not normally have access to these opportunities
● Increase awareness of diverse career options and strengthen understanding of future opportunities
● Build confidence, wellbeing and aspiration, empowering young people to believe in their potential and make informed decisions about their future.
● Develop employability skills, professional networks and awareness of career pathways, equipping young people to access and succeed in future education and employment opportunities.
Over the next three years, we will scale The Alessia Russo Foundation Career days nationally, reaching girls across the UK. Our goal is to drive sustained engagement in education, careers, and personal development, while supporting long-term aspiration, wellbeing, and life outcomes.