Our young people, staff and trustees worked together over a series of workshops in late 2024/ early 2025 to identify the following strategic priorities to help FYA best support young people to create change during 2025-28.
1. Leading, Together
To be the leading enabler of exemplary youth-led social action throughout Camden and Westminster
FYA has a track record of delivering high quality programmes of peer support, youth social action and youth voice in system change in Camden. Our model supports young people to work in teams to draw on the intersectionality and complexity of their experiences as young Londoners to lead social action and create system change.
Nearly half the young people we currently engage with have lived experiences of social equalities and we want to continue this targeted approach, ensuring young people who experience the greatest challenges have the most opportunity to benefit from our programmes.
We want to maintain this core activity across Camden and further embed the work in Westminster, ensuring a continued focus on excellence in delivery across all our programmes. Our four core areas of programme delivery are:
2. Pathways for Passions
To expand and formalise progression-routes into youth leadership through FYA’s programmes and beyond
Currently 66% of staff were previously young volunteers with FYA. For young people in our community, the relatability of the FYA team is one of our great strengths. Many other young people attend FYA programmes and stay on with the organisation in different roles, either moving onto further FYA projects, becoming FYA Ambassadors or training as youth coaches within our football programmes. This pathway is a real success story for many of our young people and staff.
However, there is still work to do to ensure that all young people who take part in our programmes, whether in their school or youth centre settings, are aware of all the opportunities they could progress onto.
We also want to create opportunities for young people receiving 1-2-1 statutory case worker support (for example within CAMHS, social care or Youth Offending) to benefit from our asset-based, group work approach to youth-led social action.
3. Change the Sector
For FYA youth-led model to be taught and implementing change
FYA can only deliver this ambitious programme of work if the core resources of the organisation are supported. This means continuing to maximise all possible income streams available to the organisation and to nurture the human resources we have available. It also means ensuring that the organisation has the right home to deliver this work from. Staff and young people have identified limitations of the current space in terms of accessibility, and we would like to explore the feasibility of finding a new home for FYA. Over the next 3 years we would like to:
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4. The FYA of the Future
To continue to develop and future-proof our team and business model
FYA can only deliver this ambitious programme of work if the core resources of the organisation are supported. This means continuing to maximise all possible income streams available to the organisation and to nurture the human resources we have available. It also means ensuring that the organisation has the right home to deliver this work from. Staff and young people have identified limitations of the current space in terms of accessibility, and we would like to explore the feasibility of finding a new home for FYA. Over the next 3 years we would like to:
