The Mayor of London created the Young Londoners Fund (YLF) to help give young people the support they need to build a better future and avoid getting caught up in crime. The fund will see £30m made available for projects in local communities. The remaining £15m will be invested to expand existing projects funded by City Hall that support young Londoners.
A new YLF Local Network for Bexley and Bromley offers a unique opportunity to develop a model, informed by best practice whilst being bespoke and relevant to both young people and stakeholders in our localities. For instance, both our Forums are inclusive of key VCSE agencies which lead on service delivery to young people and are connected to statutory agencies (Council and CCG) through their commissioning. The voice and views of young people will therefore be embedded in the Forum and its plans.
First event: Engagement and Participation
As part of the Young Londoners Fund, the Bromley and Bexley Local CYP network hosted an interactive online event on 1 December 2020 to focus on the engagement and participation of young people in organisations and activities. The event was a great success with over 60 people participating throughout the morning in our various workshops. We are pleased to be able to share with you all the presentations and feed back that came out from those sessions.
Second event: Better Working Together in a Post Covid World
Workshops focused on the impacts of Covid on their working relationships, what has worked well and should be retained and built on. Another session focused on the positive partnership between the Bromley Children and Families Forum and the Council in a new programme on Peer support established during the pandemic.
Third event: Strengthening the Local Voluntary Sector (CYP) Workshop
On 11 November 2022, as part of the Young Londoners Fund programme, the Bexley and Bromley Local Network held its final event of the curent funding round. "Strengthening the Local Voluntary Sector (CYP) Workshop" attracted 30 attendees from across the boroughs. The event brought together the learning from the first two sessions and looked towards future working. See Resources below for a summary of the workshop.
Fourth event: Youth Mentoring
Over 40 people from grassroots voluntary sector organisations, statutory bodies and others with an interest in commissioning and delivering services to young people, participated in the Bexley and Bromley Young Londoners Fund Local Network event that took place on 16 November 2022.
The main focus of this online event was mentoring. Mentoring is a key component of the Mayor's New Deal for Young People and also a new funding consortium, Propel.
Speakers at the event included:
- Adam Ballard of Gloves not Gunz presented on their aim to prevent & divert young people from crime, antisocial behaviour, exclusion from education and ‘care’ through building positive relationships, education, diversion activities and community cohesion.
- Kathie Canavan and Rachel Medhurst Bexley IASS and Bexley Local Offer shared their experiences of mentoring their Kickstart young people.
- Programme Leader Mentoring & Volunteering project lead
- Bromley Education Business Partnership, People Department, Children, Education and Families, London Borough of Bromley presented on supporting young people who attend Bromley school as an early Intervention Service.
- Sara Stanton at the Greater London Assembly presented on the Propel Opportunities for funding and collaboration
A breakout rooms discussion took place during the morning and asked:
- What do you offer regarding youth mentoring?
- What are the challenges for you?
- What are the benefits to you and your organisation of providing youth mentoring?
- What support do you/might you need to help you to provide youth mentoring?
There is a jamboard which contains the comments from the various questions that groups looked at: Youth Mentoring 16 Nov 2022 - Google Jamboard
The funding officers from Bexley and Bromley briefly outlined the support that they offered local voluntary sector organisations and recommended that organisations register for the regulation newsletters and bulletins that featured new funding and training opportunities.
Delegates were reminded to complete a short survey which would help determine how a small amount of grant funding could be best used for training purposes.
Delegates were also interested in continuing some events in the future as the netorking and information sharing had proved popular. Click here for resources from the session (Jamboard, Propel Information session presentation, Bexley IASS & Bexley LO presentation - Mentoring).
Resources
- Demonstrating that you are engaging with young people presentation (.pdf, Dec 2020)
- Ensuring young people’s voices are heard presentation (.pdf, not seen on the day, Dec 2020)
- Positive Futures Fund (.pdf courtesy London Borough of Southwark, Dec 2020)
- Mentimeter survey feedback (.pdf, Dec 2020)
- Feedback from themed discussion groups (.pdf, Dec 2020)
- Event report: 'Working Together Better in a Post Covid World', including presentation slides (.pdf, Apr 2021)
- Padlet collecting information on those wanting to raise awareness of their role or that they were seeking to work with other organisations or groups (Apr 2021)
- Report: Strengthening the Local Voluntary Sector (CYP) workshop (.pdf, November 2021)
- Youth Mentoring event Google Jamboard (16 Dec 2022)
- Propel Information session presentation (.pdf, 16 Dec 2022)
- Bexley IASS & Bexley LO presentation - Mentoring (.pdf, 16 Dec 2022)
Young Londoners Fund News
YLF exceeding targets
Over 300 projects have delivered education, sport, cultural and other activities for young Londoners across the capital as part of the Young Londoners Fund. Since the programme’s commencement in October 2018, over 59,000 young people have started a YLF Round 1 or 2 project, accessing diversionary activities or support to help them fulfil their potential. The number of young people accessing your services is particularly impressive given the challenges of working during the Covid-19 pandemic, and is well over the round 1 and 2 target to date of 51,700 young people.
In addition, 22,000 young people have accessed City Hall-led projects scaled-up with YLF funding, bringing the total number of young people supported on the entire programme to nearly 82,000. This is an incredible achievement, which exceeds the YLF target to date and is well on the way to the 110,000 anticipated to have supported by December 2022. YLF projects are reaching the young people who need it most, at a particularly difficult time for them.