Authoring Our Own Stories Year 3 Update
Authoring Our Own Stories
Authoring Our Own Stories has been funded for 5 years by the National Lottery Community Fund. The programme is being led by Partnership for Young London in partnership with Youth Focus North West, Youth Focus South West and Yorkshire and Humber Regional Youth Work Unit.
Please download the full briefing here for more information.
Setting the Context – Our Pilot Project on Regional Identities
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Authoring Our Own Stories builds on a pilot delivered in 2019 – 2020 where over 400 young people and 60 youth workers took part in research about how young people’s identities impacts on both access to services and service design and delivery.
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This project worked alongside of Dr Tom Loughran from the University of Huddersfield to explore how young people from different social groups and different regions of the UK defined their identities and how we collectively as services reflect and adapt to meet their needs.
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Young people conducted research in each region and, using multi-media approaches, explored the ways in which they expressed who they are and how they want to be represented. More information about the work that was completed can be viewed here.
Programme of Work
Introduction
Authoring Our Own Stories is being developed in response to assertions from young people, gathered through our pilot, to work with them as co-producers and provide safe spaces for them to express their multiple identities. This is so that their experiences are more accurately understood by service providers.
Ambitions
Develop services post COVID-19
Authoring Our Own Stories is being developed in response to assertions from young people, gathered through our pilot, to work with them as co-producers and provide safe spaces for them to express their multiple identities. This is so that their experiences are more accurately understood by service providers.
Programme Update
Authoring Our Own Stories: Year Three
Exploring Mental Health Through the Lens of Race and Ethnicity
Authoring Our Own Stories is now in year three! The focus for this year has been on the mental well-being of young people of Black and Asian heritage. We are delighted to have formed new partnerships with Hoxton Hall, National Citizenship Service, Spotlight and Lewisham Young Mayor’s Advisors. Participants from these organisations have offered insight and skills to support peer researchers and workers to develop resources that we hope will be the catalyst of critical thinking and behavioural change on how we understand and work with young Black and Asian people to address the systemic inequalities that so often impact their mental health.
We have been delivering a series of events to explore some of the issues emerging from the work that we are developing through Authoring Our Own Stories. The first was an online session, which looked at the problematic ideology of ‘the strong Black woman’. This will be our focus for research in 2025. We are interested in addressing this construct within the youth sector. We want to better understand how to examine the underlying assumptions we may make about young Black and Brown women’s capacity to endure hardship and cultivate enduring resilience.
To get involved in the research project for 2025 contact sandra.vacciana@cityoflondon.gov.uk.
Launching the Wellbeing Gallery
Clara Akingbade, a Young Leader with Authoring Our Own Stories, is proud to launch the first in a series of resources developed for young people to promote conversations about mental wellbeing. Clara created the Wellbeing Gallery with artist and youth worker Ilaria Di Fiore based on data analysis from our research this year. All the Young Leaders engaged in Authoring Our Own Stories facilitated focus groups using the Gallery and helped code and theme the data. This is the final product! Please use this resource (alongside the ‘How to Use this Resource’ sheet) in your youth projects and share your feedback on how effective you think it is.
Resources
Resources
More Information
For more information about the programme please contact your regional leads or the project lead:
Partnership for Young London
National Lead for Authoring Our Own Stories: A Youth Recovery Initiative Exploring Young People’s Regional Identities – Sandra Vacciana
https://www.partnershipforyounglondon.org.uk/
sandra.vacciana@cityoflondon.gov.uk
Youth Focus North West.
Sarah Lanchin https://www.youthfocusnw.org.uk/
Youth Focus South West.
Juliette Morgan https://youthfocussouthwest.org/
Yorkshire and Humber Regional Youth Work Unit.
Charlee Bewsher http://www.youthworkunit.com/
Contact Us
Sandra Vacciana
National Lead for Authoring Our Own Stories: A Youth Recovery Initiative Exploring Young People’s Regional Identities