Over the past 40 years, over 2,500,000 people have completed one of our leadership qualifications, awards or programmes.
And despite huge challenges, our incredible delivery centres across the UK, Ireland and internationally continue to face, 100,000 young people each year have the opportunity to build their leadership skills through practically applied experiential learning as leaders in their community.
We are consistently amazed by the achievements of young people on our programmes and the positive impact that gaining these essential skills has on their confidence. It is inspiring to see how empowered they feel to now shape their futures and their communities.
100,000 young people is a lot. And when we talk to new partners, decision-makers or politicians, they are always impressed by just how many young people take part in our programmes and astonished when we tell them this means young people participating and leading 4 million hours of learning, volunteering and social action each year.
Looking back over our history in the past few months, we can trace back the first Community Sports Leadership Award delivered in 1981 to a comment made by Prince Philip in 1974 at the inaugural Colson Memorial Lecture, that ‘every generation has a responsibility to pass on its experiences and discoveries about the art of living to its succeeding generation’.
Certainly in my lifetime, I don’t think that quote has ever been more appropriate.
There are so many pressures on young people now that adults can’t truly appreciate as it is so different from our own education and adolescence.
Two years of covid-impacted schooling; climate change; the cost-of-living crisis; the omnipresence of social media – these things are the current reality for children and young people.
I know I feel overwhelmed by this never-ending negative news cycle, so perhaps it is no wonder that 47% of young people are not satisfied with life (OECD); 2 million feel lonely; 20% think they will fail in life.
The changing face of the workplace
During my own schooling, the education, apprenticeships and careers that me and my friends aimed for were recognisable to my parents and even grandparents.
But in 2016, the World Economic Forum stated 65% of primary school pupils would enter the job market to roles that didn’t currently exist.
Many of those primary-school-aged children in 2016 are now considering their journey beyond education and how to take their first steps in those job roles.
It feels an almost impossible task for children and young people to be prepared for their future if we as adults don’t even know what that looks like.
And children and parents recognise this already. The brilliant Beano Brains Raising Gen Alpha report highlights that 57% of millennial parents (that includes me…just!) agree that school is not preparing their children to be citizens of the future.
Perhaps more frighteningly, only 2% of girls feel equipped by education for adulthood and work.
But I don’t think we should view these opinions as education being at fault but rather they are a reflection of the pace of change we are all experiencing. We are in an era of ‘disruption’ where social, cultural, and economic ‘norms’ are changing faster than ever.
In early July I was fortunate enough to listen to Dr Lisa Morrison-Coulthard from the National Foundation for Education Research talk about their investigation into the Skills Imperative at the Festival of Education.
Dr Morrison-Coulthard’s research highlighted that the workforce of 2035 (that’s only 12 years away…) will need higher levels of essential skills than the workforce before them has.
These essential skills are really what we talk about in the skills framework we have embedded in our programmes since 2018.
Our responsibility to do more
We have achieved so much in the past 40 years. It would be easy to simply continue to do what we have always done, and each year congratulate ourselves on a job ‘well done’.
But we believe the need for young people to build confidence, skills and community cohesion is greater than ever.
And if we go back to that Prince Phillip quote from nearly 50 years ago, it is our responsibility to do more.
This is why we have challenged ourselves to become the Leadership Skills Foundation.
We want to evolve as an organisation. We want to continue to work collaboratively with all our incredible centres and build an offer that can engage and empower more young people to build the confidence, skills and qualities they will need to shape their futures and, just as importantly, our future too.
