Every year has its ups and downs, and 2019 has certainly had its fair share of challenges. We said goodbye to our CEO and other fantastic members of staff, which meant we had to get creative about how we could deliver to our network and on our programme promises. Now, we have a strong core team with support from special consultant Colin Falconer, and a partnership with SEUK.
Being Advantaged Thinking means taking time to reflect, both on the stuff that could’ve gone better and on the things that are worthy of celebration. So to round off 2019 on a high, here are our team’s 12 best moments from this transformational year. Cheers!
- Seeing the passionate support of The Foyer Federation from the Friends of Foyer group
- Celebrating the first Foyers to achieve FOR Youth certification
- The publication of the latest Power Up report to advance and deepen youth involvement in the network
- Colin: “Seeing the publication of BSL’s ground-breaking longitudinal study into the impact of Foyers in Australia, and being awarded with an Advantaged Thinking Champions badge on my latest trip around Australia’s Foyers.”
- Seeing the successes of the first Fellowship for Leaders cohort and sharing the journey with the second group
- Hosting two FOR Youth Partner workshops to share the learnings from the oldie-but-goodie Working Assets and Taking the Lead toolkits
- Kate: “Receiving so many fantastic project proposals for the Hear Me Out! fund that we couldn’t choose and approved more than originally planned!”
- Facilitating learning and innovation at the Ideas Labs in Birmingham and London
- Seeing the network participate in the Room for Young People conference and awards, and having three young people from Foyers shortlisted and one winner
- Caitlan: “Hearing the passion and enthusiasm from the network at the regional meetings.”
- Hearing about the eight women leaders selected for the first cohort of the Jane Slowey Memorial membership programme
- Joel: “Working closely with our investor members and co-creating the new Advantaged Thinking Action Pack with them!”