Authoring Our Own Stories is a national project exploring young people’s regional identities. The work is spanning 5 years, is arts-based and provides an opportunity for young people to take the lead in investigating the ways their peers define their identities. Outcomes may include tools for the workforce and national data to inform the development of more relevant and accessible youth services for more information visit the follow link – https://www.partnershipforyounglondon.org.uk/authoringourownstories#
Year 4 – 2025, will be exploring the questions raised in year 3,
- How does youth work support young people to develop their civic identity, when they are excluded from their local ‘school’ community because they are either excluded from it or educated away in alternative provision.
- How does this ‘exclusion’ impact on aspiration, sense of identity and belonging?
- Where does community aspiration fit, does this help or hinder, young people’s relationship to education?
More information can be found here Young leaders project information 2025
How we began
In 2022 the YWU worked with young leaders, artists and 100 + young people with SEND, to explore Civic Identity. The groups created a range of art works to share their ideas and the young leaders created a website to host it on Authoring Our Own Stories (sendyouthvoice.com) – do visit to hear their Rap, see their Aspirations and watch their film.
As part of the project ‘Authoring Our Own stories’ the SEND Alliance carried out a piece of research in 2022, the findings from the project and the feedback from the SEND young people who took part in year one, highlight some of the specific barriers SEND young people experience when trying to access support and careers advice, gain employment, access training opportunities, and improve their skills. Their report can be found here AOOS Year One written report-final
Year two – 2023: targeted young people living in ex mining and industrial areas, referring to the theory of social haunting-why the ghosts of yesterday still haunt these areas today (report attached). This year we are specifically working with young men; to further investigate the lack of white working-class young men accessing youth services and informal education settings; barriers to accessing employment, training, and skills; exploring the concept of civic identity, community, and masculinity. We are currently in our recruitment phase looking for young men with lived experience to lead the project. Their report can be found here AOOS 2023 End of year report
Year 3 – 2024: The young leaders/peer researchers talked to young white males (11-25) who live in an ex-mining or ex industrial community. They worked with a range of projects in the Yorkshire and The Humber region. Facilitated sessions between March to November, attended the youth advisory board, contribute to a Regional and National Steering Group for the project and shared feedback from the research with youth workers. ‘It was an opportunity to build friendship groups locally and nationally and develop cross sector networks with young people and professionals. see the film from their dissemination event
The group worked with researchers from the University of Huddersfield, to explore if the changes to the industrial landscape with the closure of the mining industry, impacts on young people’s identity and aspirations – read more here NCM Legacies of the Strike AOOS 2025
Delivered in partnership with Partnership for Young London and funded by The National Lottery Community Fund
Authoring Our Own Stories: Graffiti Exhibition at The National Coal Mining Museum Blog
(By Dr Kat Simpson, The University of Huddersfield and Chelsea Jackson, Youth Work Unit)
Background and Context: Authoring Our Own Stories
Young Leaders, Chelsea Jackson (Youth Work Unit: Yorkshire and The Humber) and Dr Kat Simpson (The University of Huddersfield) organised and held a public dissemination event Authoring Our Own Stories: Graffiti Exhibition at the National Coal Mining Museum (25.01.2025). The event exhibited research from the Impact Acceleration Account research project: Mined Out? Youth in the Former Coalfields which worked alongside the Youth Work Unit’s regional involvement in the five-year National Lottery funded Authoring Our Own Stories (AOOS). AOOS and the IAA explored 40 young working-class lads’ (11-25-years-old) experiences of growing up in and around the former coalfields of Barnsley. The research focused on three spheres – education, employment, and community – and explored the lads’ orientations towards, and lived experiences of, these spheres .
see images and read more HudCRES Blog Graffiti Event (002)