Nurturing young leaders
Empowering young people with opportunities to lead, share power and develop talents.
Young people are overflowing with potential. They bring valuable strengths, unique experiences and a change-making energy to our services and our society. In recent years, we’ve invested in deepening our listening practice, sharing power, and developing a variety of skills-and-confidence-building opportunities for young people, from small grants and consultations to paid work and governance.
Our approach
There are four keys ways for young people to engage with the Foyer Federation: getting involved in our initiatives, having a say in what we do, collaborating and co-delivering our work, and leading our events, programmes and training.
We do this in a holistic, organic way by building authentic relationships with young people, facilitating ways to grow their confidence, offering opportunities for skill development, and seeking onward opportunities for them to continue expanding their horizons.
Our Young Consultants work with us to deliver our training, make decisions about how grants are awarded, share first-person stories and experiences, and ensure our programmes are tailored to their needs and ambitions. We’re currently seeking to expand our offer across each of the following areas:
The Big Questions survey
The Big Questions is our biannual survey for young people living in supported housing services within our membership. We aim to heard from as many young people as possible, from as many services as possible, to ensure every young person has an opportunity to be heard and create change.
Responses to this survey are factored into our strategic planning and how we shape our offer and programmes. Each Foyer receives a benchmarking report with insights in to trends and changes in young people’s priorities and experiences, and Foyers that submit a high number of responses receive a tailored report to enable them to make changes specific to their circumstances.
Programmes
Our programmes are designed to build on people’s talents, strengths and skills.
Through our projects and initiatives for both young people and staff in Foyers, we explore ways to involve young people in shaping the services that are delivered to them.
The learning from every programme is embed within our own practices and shared throughout our member network to continually improve the offer for young people and the support available to Foyer staff.
Get in touch
If you’d like to find out more about how we work with young people, get in touch with us at [email protected].
