The Youth of Today is now closed

Today marks the end of The Youth of Today project. The Youth of Today, which has focused on promoting leadership opportunities for young people, has had a positive impact on individuals, young people and organisations.

In this final blog post, the partner organisations highlight some of their work to date and summarise future work and possibilities.

British Youth Council (BYC)

Project highlights

• At the end of the Local Councillor Shadowing Programme, BYC has worked with more than 150 young people and supported 52 councils of all sizes across England, including those at city, county, metropolitan, borough, district and parish level to undertake the shadowing process.
   
• The programme attracted local and national media attention – most notably in publications such as Children and Young People Now and the LGA magazine ‘First’ – drawing on positive testimonies from councillors, programme co-ordinators and participants.

• As Neelam Rose, 18 who shadowed at Birmingham City Council said “For me, the Local Councillor Shadowing Programme has been a life changing experience.”

What next?
Currently BYC is developing the scheme for councils to enable them to deliver it locally and accredit the young people's learning. For more information on this please email awards@byc.org.uk.

Changemakers

Project Highlights

• Fellowship Residential 2010 – More than 250 young leaders attended a 3 day residential in August 2010, which saw young people from all over the country come together to develop their leadership skills and support each other to start making positive change in their communities. Click here to see the video.

• One of our apprentices, Josh Scott, showed his leadership skills by interviewing both Lord Alan Sugar and Dame Kelly Holmes on the live webcast, which you can watch again here.

• In February 2011, we held a residential for all our Youth Leadership Team and Youth Scrutiny Group members, along with our Fellow mentors. This was a fantastic opportunity for participants to celebrate what they have achieved, learn some new skills and to start to promote the success of the programme.

What next?
Changemakers has just launched its own Leadership Development Programme for young leaders which will see young people undertake a year long programme.  Changemakers offers training, coaching, peer support and real world leadership experiences for young people, helping them become more aware of and better able to harness their leadership potential.

This programme builds young people’s ability to lead and enables them to build awareness of their values, identity and leadership style. Find out more at www.changemakers.org.uk.

National Youth Agency (NYA)

Project Highlights

• The production of the Challenge and Lead resource to help young people campaign and make a difference – you can download it here and gain accreditation for young people’s work.

• Formation of the Leadership framework, developed with partners to give a shared approach to developing and promoting young people’s leadership. Click here to download the Leadership framework.

• The hundreds of examples of young people taking the lead and making a difference in their communities that have been collected. Click here for a selection of examples.
   
• The Global Optimist website – offering exciting opportunities for young people to volunteer and make a difference. Access opportunities by clicking on www.globaloptimists.org.

• Training and supporting front line workers to help young people build their leadership skills.

What next?
The NYA will continue to work with partners on supporting and developing leadership opportunities for young people through its future projects. Visit www.nya.org.uk for current and future initiatives.

The Prince’s Trust

Project Highlights

• Young people actively participated in The Youth of Today Campaign – playing their role in addressing the negative perceptions of young people...

• The Prince’s Trust were able to utilise digital media in a variety of innovative new ways to deliver this campaign and increase its impact on the target audience. This included the extensive use of social media, the delivery of a three hour webcast and a series of short films showing the positive activities of young leaders in their communities.   

What next?
The Prince’s Trust is embedding the learning from working with young people in this way and using digital media in the organisation. Their Youth Leadership Team will continue to work with young people on new projects when The Youth of Today ends. The Prince’s Trust has forged strong links with the consortium organisations through the delivery of this project and is actively seeking opportunities to work together in the future.

The Young Foundation

Project Highlights

• More than £1,000,000 has been invested in 37 organisations that have been funded to expand and develop new leadership opportunities for young people across England.

• 36 young people from disadvantaged backgrounds received a share of the £30,000 Youth Leadership Fund pot which has allowed 30 youth led projects to be created and run by young people for the benefit of the wider community.

• Three publications have been researched, written and produced exploring youth leadership.  Taking the Lead; The Young Foundation and the web: Digital and Social Innovation; The Way to Work: young people speak out on transitions to employment.  See our publications

What next:
The Youth of Today has provided The Young Foundation with a lasting body of experience and insight into what youth leadership looks like, how it develops and how they might go about monitoring the experiences of the young people involved.  By researching and funding simultaneously this has allowed them to listen and adapt their program to make the impact on young people as effective as possible.

Having a Youth Leadership Team has been a fantastic experience for them and they are proud of the many achievements of their young people which include writing the foreword for the final publication, presenting at internal and external conferences and creating their own youth led funding scheme - I Do Ideas.

In the future, the Young Foundation hopes to take forward I Do Ideas and they will be building on their blog to stay in touch with those young people that they  have funded. Visit www.idoideas.tumblr.com for more info.

UK Youth Parliament

The UK Youth Parliament has run a scheme where young people have shadowed Government ministers to give greater understanding of their leadership roles and responsibilities. 

Quotes from the Shadowing Ministers scheme

• "The Ministerial Shadowing Scheme is a great opportunity for young people to gain an insight into what a Minister does, how government departments work and what qualities are necessary to become a Minister. Having Daniel shadow me has been great and we have both got something out of this experience." - Hilary Benn in the Grimsby Telegraph

• "It was a totally worthwhile experience. Seeing the work the minister does with child poverty and affordable childcare made me want a career in politics" - Young Person in the Havant News.

What next?
For more information about the current and future work of the UK Youth Parliament visit www.ukyouthparliament.org.uk.

And finally...
The Youth of Today would like to thank all of its friends and partners for their much appreciated involvement, engagement and support over the last two years. Without you, The Youth of Today wouldn’t have been the success it has.

Whilst The Youth of Today will cease to operate in the way it has been, we are committed to our work continuing. The programme has been a great experience for all the consortium partners involved and together we hope to work together to promote youth leadership long into the future.

We hope you have found The Youth of Today a useful resource and wish you luck in developing the next generation of leaders.

Best wishes,

The Youth of Today.