2026 is the fifth and final year of Authoring Our Own Stories. We are excited and proud of the work achieved across the country with Young Leaders, focus group participants, our stakeholders and regional youth units, since this youth voice project was launched in 2022. The time has flown and we are eager to begin implementing recommendations this year, based on all the rich data collected through our field work over the years. Across the country, projects will be delivered wi

In London we are focused on delivering a programme of three training sessions on key themes from our research including ‘Community, Connection and Belonging’, ‘Developing Intergenerational Dialogue when Exploring Support for Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health and ‘Breaking the Glass Ceiling’. This training is being co-produced with professionals and Young Leaders and delivered to partners including London Youth, Spotlight and Metropolitan and Thames Valley Housing. For mor

We are pleased to share resources and updates from across the regions engaged in Authoring Our Own Stories. Please see below for reports and training materials to support professionals in their work with young people on themes of civic identity ​ ​Youth Focus North West Read the full report here Watch the video and soundscape ​ Authoring Our Own Stories is a national project exploring young people’s civic identities, to understand how civic identities impact access to serv

​​BRING YOUR AUNTY – Our London Stakeholders Event, Authoring Our Own Stories Dance, food and music were all crucial cultural elements woven into the presentation of our research findings at BRING YOUR AUNTY our recent stakeholder event at Guildhall, City of London. Rachel Adjekukor, Anuoluwapo Fadairo, Emmanuella Mamah (aka Ella), Rumaisa Mulji and Emmanuela Kumi all gave compelling evidence from our research project this year as to why we need to unpack the narrative of ‘Th

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 r

In 2023 we recruited six art students from Harris Academy Girls East Dulwich (HAGED), to become peer researchers. We did self-portraits in our first session and shared questions we wanted to explore together about civic identity. The group was keen to learn more about how we were going to use art practices to build our research projects. We wanted to highlight the skills and experience each group member already had and could contribute to Authoring Our Own Stories. We did ou

We used a video format to report back on how we developed our research project in London, what we found out and what we think should happen next!