Schoolchildren learn lessons from Anne Frank
Inviting holocaust survivors to speak to schoolchildren about their terrifying childhood experiences is just one of the ways a London-based programme seeks to challenge prejudice and prevent or combat hate and race-related offending.
Anne Frank Young Ambassadors taking part in letters project
Other activities from The Anne Frank Trust Schools and Young Ambassadors Programme, currently delivered in London boroughs with high levels of community tension, include diversity and human rights workshops and training schoolchildren to be ‘Young Ambassadors’ to lead areas of the programme to other schools.
This enables the young people to develop social, communication and leadership skills.
The Anne Frank Trust has received £756,478 from the Big Lottery Fund’s Realising Ambition programme to allow the programme to replicate in cities and towns in England and Scotland, such as Leeds and Glasgow.
Hear from some of the ‘Young Ambassadors’ and Mukith Khalisadar, Senior Project Officer for the Anne Frank Trust in this podcast.
The Trust has seen a 32% improvement in social, emotional and discipline indicators among Ambassadors and teachers surveyed at the beginning and completion of the training. Communication skills increased by 36%, self motivation by 50% and confidence by 34%. Knowledge and understanding on Anne Frank, the Holocaust and issues of stereotyping, prejudice and identity today increased over two-fold.
Moving heaven and earth for local community
By Oli Sian Davis, Policy & Learning Adviser
If I’d have asked a thousand people to paint me a picture of a Reaching Communities buildings project, I doubt anyone would have portrayed anything quite like the Going Underground project at Bardon Mill in Northumberland.
This earth-sheltered village hall is considered by the project to be the first of its kind in the UK. It is partially underground and will offer valuable community services on the site of a former Bardon Mill Colliery which closed in 1973. Those working on the project have worked wonders since forming in 2009 after the last community building closed, leaving young and old with nowhere to go.
For me, the Going Underground project shows just what can be acheived with a Reaching Communities grant through our strand specifically for buildings. It also clearly demonstrates the imagination, determination and drive that local people have and what they can achive if given a helping hand with funding. It’s such an inspiring story of a community creating such an environmentally-friendly meeting place for future generations that also pays tribute to its proud past.
The Going Underground project is believed to be the first of its kind in the UK
To see a rural community in Northumberland without a village hall get a £354,576 grant from BIG to build a new and quite literally ground-breaking meeting place – into the side of a hill – is something worth sharing. It should act as inspiration for other communities to come together to make the most of the millions available for transforming buildings or sites based in strategically targeted and deprived areas in England.
We want to see others to be inspired by both the design of the building and the drive of the community and to contact us to make sure other eligible projects do not miss out on the opportunity that is the buildings strand of our Reaching Communities programme.
For more information on the funding available please click here
To hear about the Reaching Communities awards that we are announcing today, visit our newsroom.
Making common sense common practice
By Julia Slay, Senior Researcher and Social Policy Programme Co-ordinator, New Economics Foundation (nef)
Julia Slay, New Economics Foundation
This week, nef held a conference that marked the start of an exciting new programme of work we’re running on The Wisdom of Prevention. The event, supported by the Big Lottery Fund, brought together an impressive range of speakers from a range of sectors: Lord Adair Turner, Margaret Hodge MP, Jonathon Porritt, David Robinson, and Dharmendra Kanani from the Big Lottery Fund.
So what is Prevention? To many it may be a new term, although it is used fairly widely in social policy circles. It’s about understanding why things go wrong, and tackling the underlying causes of harm. To quote from nef’s report on the subject:
- For society: tackling the underlying causes of poverty, unemployment, ill-health, illiteracy and homelessness, reducing crime and social conflict, insecurity and distrust, and cutting the need for hospitals, prisons and income support
- For the environment: cutting greenhouse gas emissions and the risks of climate change, safeguarding natural resources and stopping pollution of air, land and water
- For the economy: regulating financial institutions to prevent speculation, investing in good jobs and renewable energy, taxing polluters and discouraging carbon-intensive production.
This may sound like common sense – and indeed, that was a point made by Community Link’s David Robinson, who reminded us that what makes common sense does not always become common practice. In fact, there are precious few examples of this important strategic approach being applied in any systematic way.
Even in the health sector, where the idea is perhaps most developed, Margaret Hodge outlined that only 4 per cent of the total NHS spend is devoted to preventative measures, and yet many health conditions are preventable.
Photo credit: estherase via Flickr
nef’s take on prevention expands the concept beyond the social sphere, and also looks at how the underlying causes of harm in the environment and economy are often highly interlinked and can be ‘’mutually reinforcing’’.
Several examples in the paper showed what applying a preventative approach might look like in practice. One example was taken in insulating homes against the cold, which if done at a national scale, would boost employment and skills.
Over time it would reduce the amount spent on the winter fuel allowances.[i] It would also reduce the amount of carbon used in heating homes, and reduce heating bills – benefits across the environmental, social and economic spheres.
Delegates put forward some searching questions during the Panel Q&A. Some of the ones which have stayed in my mind asked;
- Have we have seen a failure of politics in the lack of leadership on this agenda?
- What trade-offs we might have to be prepared to make when considering the reality of what preventing significant and global challenges, such as climate change?
- Does the language of ‘prevention’ need to change to a more positive axis if we are to persuade people of its powerful and radical potential?
- How far can regulation and legislation get us?
If you didn’t make the conference, you can catch up on it with the full audio on our website, download the full report here, or wait until the short film of the event is produced, which will be up on the nef website by the end of May.
We’ll be continuing this work on prevention with an expert seminar in the autumn, and are looking at opportunities to develop a practical programme of work. Please get in touch with Julia.slay@neweconomics.org if you are interested in being part of this.
[i] DWP (2011), ‘Benefit Expenditure by Country, Region and Local Authority’, http://data.gov.uk/dataset/local_authority_benefit_expenditure
The wisdom of prevention
By Dharmendra Kanani, England Director, Big Lottery Fund
Communities and people are facing very challenging times in meeting their needs, as are the organisations and sources of funding that traditionally have helped them. It’s not just an economic challenge, but one that comes from changes in people’s expectations, the balance of retired and working people, and new technologies.
BIG’s Dharmendra Kanani
Alongside these challenges there are great opportunities; releasing the energy in people, communities and places so that they can make their own choices about how to run things; greater flexibility and freedom for providers and localities to come up with better solutions; and early action which can prevent social, economic and environmental problems before they occur.
As an Intelligent Funder, the Big Lottery Fund has a keen interest in readiness and capacity for the long term, as well as early action that helps people and communities prepare for and navigate times of transition, where vulnerability to falling into need can be at its greatest.
This is why we are supporting the New Economic Foundation’s ‘Wisdom of Prevention’ conference, the Early Action Taskforce and a range of initiatives to enable positive change that can unlock the barriers to early action.
The Wisdom of Prevention conference also provides the perfect platform for BIG to unveil our new England funding programme and outline our strategic focus up to 2015.
Over the next three years we will ensure the impact of this funding can support the organisations we work with to make the greatest possible impact for communities and the lives of people most in need. Just some of the ways that we will do this include:
- People Powered Change. People Powered Change is at the heart of everything we do and central to the way we behave as a funder. We will help people and communities to identify and unlock their potential, broker collaborations to enable knowledge and good practice to grow and share learning both locally and nationally. This is how we will reach the areas of greatest need.
- Continued funding through our popular open grants programmes – Reaching Communities and Awards for All. Our experience has shown us that communities are usually best placed to identify their own needs and how to address them.
- Four to five long-term strategic investments. To address entrenched issues that are costly, both socially and economically.
- Support the voluntary and community sector to explore the potential of the social investment market. To examine the opportunities it may offer to organisations to scale up their work and have an even greater impact, as well as becoming more sustainable.
We are really looking forward to the nef conference and the resulting opportunity for key stakeholders to explore how we can all work together to support early action.
By Reanna Vernon, 21
We’re now two months into the BIG investment codesign process. The 20-strong team of young people has been working in different groups on consultations, research and marketing – so our meeting on Saturday 21 April was the perfect opportunity to “catch-up” on the progress we had all made. We were also faced with the task of creating an action plan as to how we would go forward.
It was great seeing the whole investment team together again and interesting to see how all the areas of work were piecing together to formulate the funding priorities for BIG. The morning began with members of the social media team sharing the exciting contacts they had been able to make through blogging, tweeting #BIGyp and the Facebook page.
The learning team then updated the group on their progress. Abi, 16 explained, “In the Learning Team we basically look at the possible outcomes within a topic and then evaluate how successful it could be. We look at short and long term outcomes and what types of things BIG may fund. We devised a Theories of Change document so we can see how we can measure the success when the final decision has been made. It’s great to hear that our theories of change are being used by the design team to help them come to a decision!”
She talked about how the process had helped her develop, “Personally I think the role has helped me understand more about each topic. I also have so many more skills now than I did at the start… I even use Twitter now!”
The investment team were then joined by Ambreen Shah (BIG’s Deputy Director of Policy for England) and Albert Tucker (Vice-chair of BIG’s England Committee) who arrived just in time to take part in a hilarious energiser led by Tope, one of the investment team. We then had some fascinating in depth discussions around youth unemployment and ended the session by watching Plan B’s Ill Manors video and thinking about the implications of negative portrayals of young people, another key area identified in our research and consultation.
Some of us recorded a podcast about how we felt the process was progressing, which you can listen to below.
After a lunch break we talked and decided we needed to change the way we work as a group. Whilst we have enjoyed working on our separate areas, we felt that now there was a need to focus all our efforts on coming up with solutions to the issues we had prioritised to present to the England Committee. So the team split into two groups – one exploring ways forward in creating opportunities for unemployed young people and the other focusing on mental health and wellbeing in young people.
I joined the mental health and wellbeing group where discussions ranged from defining what we meant by ‘mental health’, to exploring the many factors and issues that young people face in this area. One of the biggest questions we had was about the impact of negative portrayal in society on the mental health of young people. If you have any views on this, or examples of projects working with young people to combat either negative portrayals or mental health issues (or both!) please get in touch with us.
I also caught up with members of the group that had spent the afternoon working on youth unemployment investment options. This work seems to be developing fast and the have developed a manifesto of ideas for BIG to consider if they choose to invest in this area:
- As we start to talk about youth unemployment in local areas, all meetings will be co-chaired by a young person
- Any public meeting should start with young people speaking
- Any public meetings should be arranged at times that allow young people to attend
- We will develop a young people’s video on unemployment
- We will support young people to talk directly to the press and media about BIG’s investment priorities for young people and provide media training.
As we put together plans around the priority areas, we really need input and opinions from young people and youth organisations to ensure we can learn from projects and ideas that are making a difference across the country. Please tell us what you think, and share your experience of:
- Solutions to combat youth unemployment
- Ways to help young people with mental health and wellbeing issues.
To have your say, like our Facebook page, use our Twitter hastag #BIGyp and follow the Big Blog.
Strengthening the legacy of Improving Futures
By Tara Mackey, Evaluation and Research Analyst
Last week, as the government published findings about last summer’s riots, projects funded through the Big Lottery Fund’s £26 million Improving Futures programme were beginning to share learning about the benefits of an earlier, more joined-up approach to helping children growing up in families with multiple and complex needs.
Improving Futures projects came together to share learning and best practice
Improving Futures funding is being distributed across the UK to improve outcomes for children within families who experience multiple and complex problems – for example, to do with poor health, unemployment, debt, and housing problems – which can affect their children’s wellbeing and life chances.
Last week, our programme evaluators Ecorys brought all our Improving Futures projects together in Birmingham to consult with them on developing evaluation plans and provide an opportunity for them to share learning.
Over the next five years, Ecorys will be hosting a number of events and workshops to ensure that the voice of the projects is continually reflected in all evaluation work. These events will also provide an invaluable opportunity for projects to share learning with each other and with us here at BIG.
The event was a real success. Highlights of the day included an introduction to the evaluation monitoring system, evaluation surgeries and project speed-dating! Projects had time over lunch to explore the Improving Futures online learning site; their feedback will be incorporated and the site will be launched later this month. This is a fantastic platform providing projects with a space to engage with each other and share thematic learning throughout the life of Improving Futures.
Families First's Rebecca Clarkson was one of those who addressed the audience
Four projects gave presentations on the day. They were from Extending the Reach, based in the Tyne Gateway, Hackney-based Families First, Nuturing Inverclyde, and Eleri, operating out of Cardiff. They each shared their experiences of integrated working and community engagement. The feedback these projects provided is invaluable in building the evidence base to inform future policy in this field.
The government’s Riots and Victims Panel last week launched a report citing lack of opportunities for young people and parenting as two of the key contributors to the riots of summer 2011. The report concluded that the rioters lacked a “stake in society”. It is important to acknowledge that our Improving Futures projects are already working to support community engagement and a whole family approach to family intervention.
It is already apparent that our Improving Futures programme is beginning to meet the needs of families and communities in a number of ways. It has been praised for its innovative approach, giving charities the opportunity to lead partnerships with other local bodies and for its focus on providing earlier, co-ordinated support for around 8,000 families. The evaluation of this programme will be critical as policymakers and practitioners are keen to find out more about the projects, their impacts and their cost benefits.
Projects were updated with the progress of BIG's Improving Futures programme
An evaluation framework has been developed in consultation with projects. It is unique in its approach to assessing the prevalence of risk and strength factors for children, parents and the whole family.
The evaluation team are developing innovative plans for both a full cost benefit analysis to identify specific attributable savings for the public purse and a quasi experimental approach to confirm the net impact of Improving Futures projects.
If you want to be kept informed of the ongoing work we are doing to contribute to the UK evidence base for whole family intervention or for more information click here or email Tara Mackey, evaluation lead (tara.mackey@biglotteryfund.org.uk).
For information on the most recent awards through Improving Futures, visit BIG’s newsroom.
Want more? Read January’s blog post which announced the first 17 Improving Futures awards.
Blog post by Reanna Vernon, 21
It was a sunny Sunday morning and as I left Manchester for London, I was looking forward to meeting with the design team and finding out what they had been up to over the weekend. My job as the Investment Team blogger is to make sure the outside world knows about the hard work we are doing to help BIG design its next investment in young people.
I interrogate Kelsey
As I entered BIG’s offices, everyone was bright-eyed and all smiles. After a full day of discussion, presentations and hard work the day before, I had to consider if this was for real! I mean, these nine young people had given up their entire weekend and were fully engaged in a presentation at 10am on a Sunday morning.
Intrigued and inspired, I called each member out for some “honesty time” and first asked how they thought the weekend was going. Each person expressed how much they were enjoying it:
“We covered so much interesting information.” Steven, 23, Newcastle
“There was so much food for thought.” Kelsey, 24, London
“It’s been really informative, I’ve learnt loads of statistics and the weekend has made us all become friends.” George, 17, Cornwall
When asked what their highlight of the weekend was, without hesitation each person listed many talks, discussions, information and events that not only made it fun, but very productive.
The design team meets Dharmendra Kanani and Albert Tucker from BIG’s England Committee
Outside input
On Saturday afternoon, the design team met with Albert Tucker, Vice-chair of BIG’s England Committee and BIG’s England Director Dharmendra Kanani. Jenna, (22, Liverpool) said this was her highlight as “they were genuinely interested in us and the programme.” Kelsey agreed, explaining, “Dharmendra genuinely and passionately offered his support.”
Jenna and Kelsey deep in discussion
Everyone I asked highlighted a speaker from YoungMinds, Lucie Russell, confidently listing and exploring thestatistics she had given to them. Not only was the team able to gain a deeper insight into mental health issues facing young people in England today, they also gained invaluable skills in critically exploring issues as Micah (16, London) explained, “We got to question her and really find out if this should be a priority for BIG.”
Working with the wider investment team
It was clear this had been an important and productive weekend. But the nine young people in the design team are by no means working in isolation. Two other groups of young people are helping develop the investment – the learning team and the social media team. Along with the support of great staff from BIG, these twenty young people are working together to ensure young people from all over the country and from all ages and backgrounds can get involved and have their say.
Over the past few weeks the learning team have been providing research and looking at theories of change, while the social media team gather evidence, promote the investment and of course, blog!
Investment priorities
Using the input of these two other groups, the design team were able to spend the weekend exploring the issues young people and those who work with them had highlighted as priorities for the investment. These were:
- Unemployment
- Mental health and wellbeing
- Young people’s portrayal in society
I asked each member of the design team why each area should be a priority for BIG.
Daniel (18, Essex) explained youth employment should be a priority area: “If BIG can do just a little part to show the opportunities that are out there, maybe young people will be more motivated.” He highlighted that it is important to “stay positive and find a role model who can guide you” when looking for work.
For Vicky (20, Birmingham), tackling mental health issues is key, as they are “such a complex issues and can affect everyone – we really need to get to the heart of the matter.”
Discussing the negative media image of young people, Topes (20, London) told me, “It’s a major issue as the media has influence over everyone and no matter which paper you read, you rarely find a good story about young people.”
Jashmin, (23, London) agrees that the media could do more to combat negative perceptions: “The media only ever put out the most catchy story… they just gave a basic story of a hero and a villain without exploring the underlying issues, which really doesn’t help.”
John Taylor from BIG talks to the team
Each member had been doing a lot of critical thinking over the weekend and it was clear that they all felt these issues were very interlinked. Negative images of young people coupled with not having a job might mean a young person has a poor concept of self, low motivation or mental health issues – and visa versa.
Looking at these issues has not been straightforward, but the weekend allowed the design team to focus on the key issues and come up with some potential solutions.
One thing we all agree on is that young people in England do face many issues and this BIG investment really needs to make impact!
The design team talk about what it’s like to work on such a BIG investment
Download a transcript of this video
What’s next?
The whole investment team will meet again on 21 April to develop our recommendations for BIG’s England Committee. Before then, we’d love to hear from other young people and groups that work with them. In particular:
- we really want to hear about the major issues facing young people with mental health issues and learn more about projects and activities that have been really successful in improving people’s lives.
- we want your views on how to build young people’s resilience and prepare them to deal with life situations.
- If you have some interesting content relating to any of our priority areas – a video, blog, piece of research, picture – we’d like to see it please! Post it to our Facebook page.
Here’s how you can get in touch
Like our Facebook page
Follow #BIGyp on Twitter
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