Our Impact

Through youth-led action, young people are empowered to create change for themselves, their peers and the community.

In 2025-26, 677 young people participated in social action programmes across 53 cohorts.

Our validated monitoring and evaluation tools* show that participants achieved the following outcomes:

√ Increased Resilience and Well-being

√ Greater Sense of Belonging

√ Increased Skills and Experience

* Our evaluation framework and standard of evidence have been accredited by the Centre for Youth Impact (Project Oracle Level 2).

72% of participants in our social action programmes show a significant improvement in their mental health according to the SWEMHWBS scale*. Young people also report increased confidence, positive relationships with peers and higher self-esteem.

We use the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Health Wellbeing scale (SWEMHWBS) to measure young people’s mental health and well-being. SWEMHWBS is a widely recognised and validated evaluation tool.

According to the SWEMWBS, 65% of young people improved their wellbeing score by more than 1 point which, according to the scale, reflects the change was likely to be important to them*.

The evaluation data also shows participation in youth social action decreased ‘low levels’ of mental health (from 30% at start of programme to 9% at end), and increased ‘high levels’, of mental health (from 11% to 25%)*.

Results also show that, prior to the programme, participants’ average wellbeing score was just under one point below the national average. Post-programme mean score was 1.7 points above the national average*.

*based on 442 completed surveys among our 2025-26 attendees.

Young people taking part in social action feel more connected to their community, with 70% of participants showing an increase in their sense of community engagement*.

Through focus groups, we know that making new friends, becoming more confident in social situations, and speaking up in front of new people are some of the main motivations why young people join our social action programmes.

Evaluation shows that 66% of participants demonstrate increased levels of social competence and 65% show an increase in self-confidence.*

The wider community also benefits from youth social action. Young people can play a central role in bringing people together to celebrate their community and help make residents feel better about where they live, boosting social cohesion and integration.

FYA’s youth-led community events are highly valued by the local community who report an increased sense of community belonging and meeting new people within the community at the events. Out of the 1500+ residents who attended our community events over the last year, 262 completed evaluation surveys. Over half the respondents felt that the event had increased their sense of community belonging and 74% said they had met someone they had not known before. 62% described the event as ‘brilliant’ and a further 30% as ‘good’.

*based on 442 completed surveys among our 2025-26 attendees.

We used an adopted version of the validated Life Effectiveness Questionnaire (LEQ) to measure changes to community engagement, social competence, intellectual flexibility, task leadership and self-confidence. The LEQ focuses on measuring the extent to which a person's actions/behaviour/feelings are effective in managing and succeeding at life, or more specifically, generic life skills.

Evaluation shows that participants in our social action programmes gain significant increases in life skills. The areas of greatest development were their social competence (68%), self confidence (67%) and task leadership (72%)*.

Last year, 367 young people participated in employability workshops where they reflected on the skills gained during their social action programmes and learned how to articulate these in applications and interviews.

A total of 543 young people last year gained AQA accreditation certificates in recognition of their work in completing social action programmes. Between them, they gained 1590 certificates.

Through our focus groups, we know that one of the primary motivations for joining our social action programmes (aside from having fun, making friends, and increasing social confidence) is to develop skills to put on CVs or applications.

For many of our young people, gaining experience was the reason they joined but not the reason they stayed. From our focus groups, we know that young volunteers who remained with FYA beyond one project said that their motivation shifted from being extrinsic (qualifications for CV or references) to intrinsic - enjoying the social aspect, enjoying leading programmes, caring about the project and a gaining a sense of achievement.

*based on 442 completed surveys among our 2025-26 attendees.

Meet our people

About Fitzrovia Youth in Action

Governance & Legal

Peer Support

Place-Based Social Action

System Change

Engagement programmes

Our Impact

Through youth-led action, young people are empowered to create change for themselves, their peers and the community.

In 2025-26, 677 young people participated in social action programmes across 53 cohorts. Our validated monitoring and evaluation tools* show that participants achieved the following outcomes:

In 2025-26, 677 young people participated in social action programmes across 53 cohorts.

Our validated monitoring and evaluation tools* show that participants achieved the following outcomes: