Resources

Last week, we were honoured to attend Camden's Mayor Making Ceremony at the Town Hall, where we witnessed an unforgettable moment: the swearing-in of Cllr Nazma Rahman as the new Mayor of Camden. We are delighted to share that Young Camden Foundation has been chosen as the Mayor's Charity of the Year for 2023-24.

This remarkable opportunity fills us with immense excitement and optimism. It not only recognizes our ongoing dedication to improving the lives of children and young people in Camden but also provides a platform for us to expand our network and reach more individuals and organisations who share our passion for empowering young people and fostering positive opportunities.

Young Camden Foundation is eager to collaborate with Cllr Rahman throughout the coming year. With her support, we will create impactful projects, forge strong partnerships, and champion the needs and aspirations of Camden's young population.

Being named the Mayor's Charity of the Year allows us to extend our reach and build a stronger network of support. We are thrilled at the prospect of connecting with more businesses, organisations, and individuals who care deeply about the well-being and future of young people in our borough.

We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Nazma for selecting YCF as the Charity of the Year. Together with the Mayor's office, our member organisations, and the entire Camden community, we are poised to make a lasting difference and provide young individuals with the opportunities they deserve.

Stay tuned as we embark on this exciting journey, filled with collaborative endeavours and impactful initiatives that will shape the lives of Camden's young people. We invite you to join us in this collective effort, as we work towards creating a brighter future and empowering the next generation.

Together, we can make a meaningful impact and ensure that every young person in Camden has the chance to thrive and succeed.

This guide for Parents on MyTutor about teen mental health, has useful tips and advice for parents to help their teens overcome body image issues, academic anxiety, peer pressure, and cyberbullying, and links to other important mental health resources.

Your child’s teenage years are an exciting time, but they can be tricky too. With hormones going wild and bigger pressures at school, challenging mood swings are par for the course. With mental ill-health on the rise though, you’ll want to keep watch on whether their moods are normal, or if they need a bit of help.

Today one in five teens has a diagnosable mental health condition. And on average, people wait 8-10 years after first experiencing mental health problems before seeking help. Of course, if problems are noticed and tackled when they first come up, you can help your child with the tools they need to be happy sooner rather than later. If you think that your teen needs some professional help, find out if they can see a school counsellor, or if it’s more serious, their GP can help you work out a plan of action together.

There are lots of common issues that you can help your teen with if you have the right tips.

Click the button below for a break-down of some key pain-points, and what you can to do help as a parent.

One in four young people say they will never recover from the emotional impact of the pandemic, as confidence falls to an all time low warns Prince's Trust.

The Prince’s Trust NatWest Youth Index (pdf, 8mb), released today, finds almost a quarter of young people (23%) in the UK agree they will never recover from the emotional impact of the pandemic. The report reveals the happiness and confidence of 16 to 25-year-olds has hit the lowest point in its thirteen-year history.

The Youth Index - conducted by YouGov who surveyed 2,106 16 to 25-year-olds across the UK – gauges young people’s happiness and confidence across a range of areas, from their physical and mental health to working life.

The value of supporter research and insight has never been plainer than during the current global health crisis. Keeping supporters close, charities increased the emphasis on communication and relationship building. Mutual understanding has grown, and relationships strengthened as charities have strived to meet supporters’ needs and ignite their passion for the cause. But none of this would have been possible without research and insight.

• Youth Investment Fund will deliver up to 300 new and refurbished youth facilities in the most deprived parts of England
• Funding will tackle youth group waiting lists and offer The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to all state secondary schools in England
• National Citizen Service receives funding to ensure thousands more young people are ‘world ready and work ready’

Young people in England will be given access to more activities, trips away from home and volunteering opportunities as part of a new National Youth Guarantee backed by a £560 million investment, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries announced today (1 February).

Briefing on Children’s Mental Health Services – 2020/2021 Foreword from the Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza.

My first priority as Children’s Commissioner was to hear from England’s children how they feel about life today, particularly as we emerge from the Covid pandemic. I wanted to hear about their hopes and aspirations for the future as well as their worries and priorities right now. That’s why I launched The Big Ask, which I’m happy to say is the biggest ever survey of children in England. Over half a million children responded and it is clear that the vast majority are happy with their lives and optimistic about the future.

A report exploring the role of resilience in supporting the well-being of young people with racialised identities, from minoritized communities. The findings highlight the physical, emotional, and spiritual resources that young people from the most marginalised communities cultivate to navigate systemic inequalities and how they learn to rise again.

Charity Digital explores the trends that charities can judge their success by in 2022, with insight from the State of the Sector report by Wood for Trees. After a period of dramatic change, the last year finally brought some good news for charities. According to a new report by data and insight company Wood for Trees, overall income in 2021 was 9% higher than in 2020, rising above the levels of the previous three years.

The report, which brings together raw CRM data from a range of charities across the sector, also found there was an increase of 24% in the number of donors actively giving, a rise driven primarily through one-off donations and Community Fundraising. Though one-off donations in 2021 themselves fell slightly below the levels seen in 2020, they remained almost 50% higher than the previous three years. Community Fundraising, on the other hand, improved on 2020 but remained below pre-pandemic levels.

Though regular giving was stable (and down on previous years), the dependency on repeated donations was deemed to have fallen anyway. While these regular donations once represented nearly two thirds of a charities income (64%), Wood for Trees found that it accounted for 54% in 2021. Still enough to give charities pause, but still, there is hope in other revenue streams. Digital donations have continued to rise in 2021, its income now two-thirds higher than in 2017, but more surprising, perhaps, is the re-emergence of Direct Mail as a donation channel.

The Children's Society published in January 2022 a report that looks at the evidence on young people’s digital lives, including the impacts of being online and links to well-being.

Most young people take the internet for granted and it is integral to many aspects of their lives as they grow and develop through adolescence. Digital connectedness supports communication with friends and family, helps with building and maintaining relationships, facilitates education, provides entertainment and can allow a young person to explore their identity.

But the benefits are not shared equally by all young people. The quality of a young person’s digital life can be impaired by poor digital skills, compromised access to digital devices, insecure connections and a lack of parental support. Digital inequality among the young is often hidden but it has become more apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Proposed government legislation to tackle online harms would fail to prevent the sharing of some of the most “insidious” images of child abuse and violence against women and girls, according to an influential group of MPs. Scrutiny by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee of the Draft Online Safety Bill has found that in its current form, the legislation is neither clear nor robust enough to tackle certain types of illegal and harmful content on user-to-user and search services. Chair of the DCMS committee Julian Knight MP said: “In its current form what should be world-leading, landmark legislation instead represents a missed opportunity.

Optimise your fundraising potential. Fundraising effectively has become a heightened issue over the pandemic, with many charities seeing reduced donations, a rise in costs and an increase in demand for services.

Some societal shifts we’ve experienced over the past year and a half could potentially become permanent and, indeed, 48% of charities we surveyed in August 2021 said they believed the pandemic has changed fundraising forever. So how can we adapt our practices to maintain a steady flow of donations?

With over half of charities (55%) acknowledging that one of the main challenges in the year ahead will be adapting to new ways of fundraising, our in-house experts share their recommendations for maximising your charity’s fundraising potential.

Whether that be by optimising your digital fundraising, ensuring you land a charity grant, or improving your relationships with your donors, our resources aim to help you adapt to the new fundraising landscape and ensure those much-needed funds reach our communities.

If your charity supports women and girls and is looking to reach new audiences, develop a campaign or raise awareness about your cause, then we invite you to apply for a place at Media Trust’s Women’s Voices in celebration of International Women’s Day.

Join Media Trust virtually on Tuesday 8 March 2022 from 10:00 – 16:00 for a day of creative brainstorming and advice with your own dedicated team of media and creative industry experts.

Free advice from media and creative industry professionals. For the sixth year running, Media Trust will be celebrating International Women’s Day by bringing together 30 charities that support, campaign and advocate for all women and girls, with 150 media and creative volunteers from organisations such as adam&eveDDB, BBC, Bloomberg, Dentsu Aegis, Google, Hearst, ITV, MediaCom, Meta, Telegraph and Twitter to help raise their profile and voices, and the issues that affect them.

Who should apply? To be eligible to apply for Women’s Voices your organisation must meet the following criteria:

• Supports, campaigns or advocates for all women and girls;
• UK Registered Charity or Community Interest Company (CIC)
• Support beneficiaries from more than one of the nine protective characteristics detailed in the Equality Act (2010).
• Two members of staff must be available to attend the event on Tuesday 8 March 2022 from 10:00 – 16:00. This should be one person who deals with the charity communications and one who is a senior leader/decision-maker;
• Be willing to take part in one case study post event.

Priority will be given to organisations that work with females of colour, LGBTQIA+ and/or disabled females.

How to apply. To apply, complete the application here. The deadline for applications is Wednesday 19 January at 17:00.

With only 30 places available, we are looking for strong applications that clearly outline a specific communication challenge that you would like help to solve, along with how this support will impact your charity and the women and girls that you work with.

With the pressures of funding, combined with increased demand on services due to the repercussions of the pandemic, writing winning grant or funding applications has never been more important.

Increased demand for funding has left funders inundated with applications and competition is rife. Understanding how to put together a great application will increase your chances of gaining the funding you need for critical projects, however large or focused they are. Making sure that you are able to clearly define your organisation’s need for funding and how it will benefit the beneficiaries and communities you serve is vital.

Monica Brown, Head of Advisory and Programmes at CAF, outlines some key aspects to help you make the most of your grant applications.

The Youth Endowment Fund’s Toolkit, a free online resource to help you put evidence of what works to prevent serious violence into action.

What is the Toolkit? At the Youth Endowment Fund our mission is to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence. We do this by finding out what works and building a movement to put this knowledge into practice – our Toolkit is one way we’ll do this. The Toolkit summarises the best available research evidence about different approaches to preventing serious youth violence. It is based on real life data about what has happened when these approaches have been used before.

It provides insight on 17 different approaches, with more to be added in the future. For each approach it explains what it is, how effective it’s likely to be, how confident you can be in the evidence of its impact, as well as indicative costs and links to related resources and programmes.

Honest personal stories on what it’s like growing up in in the UK today, as told by BBC Young Reporters. Young people share their own stories in their own words, with authenticity and honesty.

Aimed at Key Stage 3 learners, this resource is designed to equip students with the skills needed to make considered and informed choices about the content they watch.

BBFC has worked closely with the PSHE Association to create a resource that includes three lesson plans, a comprehensive teaching guide and extension activities allowing pupils to explore areas such as:

• Representations of sex and relationships in films on and offline
• Decision making and peer influence
• How and why age ratings are given to films and other content
• How the BBFC reflect public and teenager views when making those decisions