Mum of double Olympic swimming champion Becky Adlington backs campaign highlighting importance of talking to teenagers about their future

Talking Futures is a campaign and website to help parents, carers and guardians, as well as educators, have constructive and informed careers and education conversations with young people aged 11 to 18-year-olds.

The campaign website, as well as providing guidance and practical tools for parents to help have career conversations with their children, also recommends and signposts to other useful sites and resources that can help parents explore the different training and education opportunities available for young people.

From practical guidance on how to kick start a conversation, to information on different education pathways, the tools are designed to give parents the confidence to have meaningful career conversations with their children.

Sharing their stories of the nurturing and supportive career conversations they had with their children growing up, Kay Adlington, along with Cynthia Gill, mother of JLS band member and farmer JB Gill, and Julie and Deon Wilson, parents to barrister, author and campaigner Alexandra Wilson, explain in a series of new online films, how these helped define the working lives their respective children went on to have.

Kay Adlington, 61, said: “It’s so important to have open and regular conversations with teenagers and give them the opportunity to be completely honest about what they want to do with their lives.

“Becky was always sure she wanted to explore being a professional swimmer and we shared the ups and the downs equally. We discussed many things along the way, some with the benefit foresight, but other retrospectively.

"We always dealt with things as openly and honestly as we could. It’s not always easy, but having a resource such as the new ‘Talking Futures’ website will allow parents to equip themselves with helpful and practical tools, so they can have productive conversations with their children that guide them in making decisions that are right for them.”

The campaign is being funded by the Gatsby Foundation which created the Gatsby Benchmarks of Good Career Guidance that schools and colleges across England must deliver against.

Michelle Rea, for the Talking Futures campaign at the Gatsby Foundation, said: “Whether we realise it or not, all the evidence points to us parents having a pivotal role in our children’s education and career choices, and a significant influence on the decisions they go on to make.

"At Gatsby, it’s our hope that this new campaign helps parents feel a bit more confident and relaxed about career conversations with their children, by providing them with straightforward guidance and support that they would like to have and that is right for them.”

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