We are London Youth: a charity on a mission to support the capital’s youth sector to improve the lives of young people. We do this with and through our members – a network of 600 youth organisations – and at our two outdoor residential centres, Hindleap Warren and Woodrow High House.
Throughout our 135-year history, community youth organisations have provided a constant lifeline and a vital safe space outside the family and formal education, where young people can develop confidence, resilience and skills. Young people need opportunities outside school to have fun with their friends, to make a positive change in their communities and to shape the city they live in.
We look to work with all young people, focusing particularly on those who wouldn’t otherwise have access to the kind of opportunities we offer.
In 2022-2023, we worked with 571 member youth organisations who supported more than 650k+ young Londoners. 24,680 young people took part in our programme events and activities, with 15,000 enjoying activities at our two outdoor learning centres, Woodrow and Hindleap. We supported 1,442 youth professionals at over 164 of our training and network sessions.
We will ensure that the individual needs of our staff, volunteers, trustees and service users are recognised. We will be, and make sure that people can see we are, inclusive and welcoming to all kinds of people, and that everyone is treated with equality, dignity and respect in all aspects of our work. Unlawful discrimination, victimisation, harassment and bullying are serious breaches of this policy and disciplinary procedures will apply. Reasonable adjustments will be made to prevent people being disadvantaged.
It’s built in to our principles that we aim for continual improvement and learn from our mistakes. We might not always be able to please everyone, but we can certainly make the effort to avoid offending people. If we get things wrong, we'll always listen carefully and show respect to people when they let us know, and we'll do our best to sort it out. Grievance procedures are in place for staff and a complaints policy for others.
Involving young people in our organisation as staff, volunteers and trustees is vital.
In July 2020, we committed to becoming an actively anti-racist organisation. That meant going beyond words and promises and ensuring that we:
- understood what being an anti-racist organisation meant for London Youth
- understood what this meant for our team and all our stakeholders
- were clear on the actions we needed to take both inside our organisation, for and with our teams and externally, for and with our members and stakeholders.
Over the past year and a half, we’ve been working with our teams, our members, our youth board, our trustees, and with support from Mahogany Inclusion Partners, to deliver on our anti-racism commitment.
