Community Engagement Guide
This guide can help users maximise the impact of working in partnership with the local community.
This guide can help users maximise the impact of working in partnership with the local community. Community and stakeholder engagement in a youth social action programme involves young people working with other interested individuals or organisations to deliver action and change. The engagement can help increase access to students' learning opportunities, boost student retention, promote optimism among teachers, and improve children's school attendance rates.
This guide's main aim is to help you understand the importance of teamwork when young people are working together on a group project. It gives you an overview of the different departments in organisations and the various roles young people can play in these departments. It explores the different stages of teamwork, such as forming, storming, morning, performing, and adjourning, and applies these to the five steps of Youth Social Action.
Schools have a responsibility to tackle poverty and promote equality of opportunities. Teaching young people about poverty can empower them to understand the subject and its impact, motivating them to act within a school, community, or city. Using the National Curriculum, we have linked as many opportunities as possible to deliver poverty through a range of different subject areas. These opportunities can be used to either deliver the topic as a stand-alone or through cross-curricular planning with a number of different subject areas, depending on the focus of the school.
This resource provides information on why young people should focus on poverty and its causes.
Schools have a responsibility to tackle poverty and promote equality of opportunity. Teaching young people about poverty can empower them to understand the subject and its impact, motivating them to act within a school, community, or city. At each key stage, we have used the National Curriculum, providing links and examples of how poverty and its impact can be delivered through a range of subjects or as bespoke lessons as part of the inspire and explore steps of Youth Social Action
Refers to activities that young people do to make a positive difference to others while developing key skills and attributes and having fun. YSA can take place in various contexts (i.e. at home, schools, youth clubs etc) and can include volunteering, fundraising, campaigning or supporting peers. We believe social action can play an essential role: in young lives, the success of a school, the local community or more.
Our Resource Hub aims to act as a Youth Social Action search engine, offering tailored results to inspire and guide. The hub hosts a wide variety of resources, including our own Youth Social Action Toolkit, case studies, research reports, and helpful resources from other reputable organisations in the sector.
Our Resource Hub aims to act as a Youth Social Action search engine, offering tailored results to inspire and guide. The hub hosts a wide variety of resources, including our own Youth Social Action Toolkit, case studies, research reports, and helpful resources from other reputable organisations in the sector.
To find appropriate resources, use the filter feature to select the relevant options. You can filter by key stage (1-5), YSA theme (e.g. poverty), or a particular skill (e.g. communication). You can also filter by resource owner (Ormiston Trust or external organisation) and resource type, such as lesson plans. If you know what you are looking for, you can use the search bar.
To save or download resources, please sign up for a free account. In your user area, you can organise your saved items for quick and easy access. On the resource results page, you can save or download multiple resource quickly by using the tickbox feature.
Our Youth Social Action Toolkit has been carefully developed by industry professionals with input from young people to guide school leaders, support staff, and young people through a Youth Social Action project. Our curriculum guides clearly outline how YSA can be integrated into the curriculum of schools with limited time.
We don’t gatekeep – by sharing our sector knowledge and resources, we aim to enrich the lives of all young people by fostering skills development, improving agency and wellbeing, and promoting active citizenship.
The first step of the YSA process is to be inspired by an issue you care about! Check out our inspirational case studies on what you could do!
The second step of the YSA process is to explore your options! You‘ll need to research the issue that inspired you to take action to understand how you can help.
Ready to start planning your project? Access our Youth Social Action Toolkit here.
The third step of the YSA process is to plan your project! Lucky for you, we have a Project Planning Template for that.
The fourth step of the YSA process is to carry out your plan! This is when the physical activities involved like fundraising, campaigning, and volunteering kick off.
The fifth and final step of the YSA process is to reflect! Looking back at your plan, did you achieve your aims? What went well and what didn’t go so well? Can you sustain your project? Or did you take steps to ensure further projects aren’t needed?