Youth spaces vs. disabled youth spaces
By Sophie Mattholie, TLF Adviser I’ve spent a lot of time in various youth spaces in the past few years. Most notably as an advisor onThe Listening Fund, and as a Trustee at a youth-led disability charity called The LUNA Project, both ofwhich I was lucky enough to get to talk about on episodes of […]
Ten things our advisers learnt from their visits to funded partners
Liddy and Neha (TLF advisers), and Edd Fry (TLF Lead) The Listening Fund’s 10 advisers (all recruited between the ages of 18-25) have been at the heart of the Fund’s grantmaking process for the second and third round of grants. Centring the advisers – who have a broad range of experiences and expertise from across […]
Our partners’ top lessons in listening to young people
As the grant period for our first cohort came to a close, we worked with a few of our partners to reflect on their learning journey in listening to young people. We dug into what inspired them to deepen their listening, the different approaches they had put in place, the benefits and challenges they experienced […]
Data and Dialogue: The Mix’s Journey to inclusive listening
Italia Jenson and Bohdana Dock, The Mix What we do The Mix is the UK’s leading digital charity for under 25s, reaching over 6 million young people each year. Whatever issue a young person is facing, The Mix is always there for them – via our website, over the phone or via social media with […]
“How can we work both with and against the system?”
By Dave Close, Executive Director, Hot Chocolate Trust This question was posed by Prof. Momodou Sallah (DeMontfort University) at Scotland’s National Youth Work Conference this month. It says something about the weird mentality of youth work that an idea that might seem impossible, also seems inevitable. As youth workers we repeatedly find ourselves living this […]
Listening and Learning – the Shift Podcast Series
Jenny Ross, Collective Discovery, Learning Partner of the Listening Fund. Over the last six months we’ve been working to create a new podcast series that showcases some of the learning from organisations funded by the Listening Fund. You can now listen on Spotify or Apple Music. As the Learning Partner of the fund, we’ve had […]
Five tips for setting up a youth advisory board
Author: Nicky Crabb, Director, Little Green Pig In 2019, Little Green Pig got an #iwill Fund grant to help us set up our first ever youth board; a long held desire for the organisation, as we are always trying to improve the ways we centre the voices of the children and young people we work […]
What I’ve learned from six months of co-leadership
Lamesha Ruddock, Co-Executive Director of Boundless Theatre and Creative Director of Blemme Fatale Productions At 22 years old, it’s unusual to be able to say that I’ve just spent 6 months as co-Executive Director of a theatre. But that’s what I’ve been doing – job sharing with an older adult at the London-based Boundless Theatre. […]
The softer skills needed for safe listening spaces
Claudia Elliot, Communications at Listening Fund’s Learning Partner, Collective Discovery Creating safe spaces for effective listening to young people requires skill. But which skill(s), exactly? We spoke to a group of Listening Fund partners to explore what different types of expertise were proving particularly valuable in their work. And whilst ‘hard’ skills – such as […]
How do you set up a great youth board?
Insights from Listening Fund partners on Youth Boards and Advisory Groups By Claudia Elliot, Collective Discovery We have been exploring the many ways youth sector organisations, and others, can increase their accountability to young people – listening to them in order to serve them better, and improve their organisation’s impact. Youth boards and advisory groups […]