Authoring Our Own Stories 2025 - Year Four National
- Admin
- May 27
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 12
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
Authoring Our Own Stories is a national project exploring young people’s civic identities, to understand how civic identities impact access to services for young people, using creative research methodologies.
Youth Focus North West AOOS Year 4 took place in Knowsley with partners MYA Our Place and Shakespeare North Playhouse. 7 young leaders gathered information about young people’s access to services and how this is impacted by identity, using methods of focus groups and surveys. The young leaders then analysed the findings from their research and turned these into creative outputs which were displayed at an exhibition at Shakespeare North Playhouse in November at an event for young people and decision makers.
The report summarises the findings of the research within four main themes of safety, travel, mental health, and things to do, which ties into belonging and the links to the national youth strategy. You can read it here.
To see the outputs from Authoring Knowsley, visit the website page.
Young people recorded a spoken word poem which they created with the artist, Blue Saint:
They also created a community map which was illustrated by Toni-Louise Carter, which powerfully demonstrates the places and people who came up in the research.
Yorkshire and Humber Youth Work Unit
Youth Focus Southwest
