Last Wednesday (3rd December) was the fourth Roundtable event for Authoring Our Own Stories, a national youth voice project exploring how young people’s identities strongly influence access to opportunities and support. Young Leaders from Partnership for Young London Youth Focus North West Youth Focus South West and Yorks and Humber Youth Work Units shared outcomes for this year.

The session opened with a powerful poem called The Things We Carry, co-created with spoken word artist Matt Abbott. It explored common themes of belonging and unbelonging among young people across different regions.  Regional groups then presented their findings and recommendations, including topics around safety, emotional wellbeing, education, employment and training. Colleagues were then given time to respond to what had been shared. Sandra, the National Lead for this work, emphasised the importance of translating recommendations into tangible outcomes and stressed that implementing current data into actions would be the priority in 2026;  the final year of this project.

See the full blog here.