A note from our Chief Executive Officer, Gemma Juma

Last Friday evening, at Shout-Out Southend, we piloted our first youth-led local event to celebrate the Jack Petchey Foundation’s impact in a community – in this instance, one we have worked in for over two decades.

Despite the extreme weather, which inevitably reduced attendance, there were some exciting new things we tried, and I wanted to share what we learned.

At JPF, we’re well accustomed to staging local events to celebrate young people’s achievements. JPF stage over 80 a year across London and Essex, and feedback shows that these are universally well-received. Our small but mighty Events team are highly accomplished at delivering them, and there is strong evidence that attending them delivers real, measurable benefit for young people. The experience of being publicly celebrated in front of an audience of hundreds “cements” the outcomes of winning a Jack Petchey Achievement Award. This was Sir Jack’s hunch, and the data bears it out.

Shout-Out Southend was a different, but equally inspiring, format we’re testing: another model for building the all-important confidence that we know makes such a difference to young people’s ability to develop and realise their ambitions in challenging times. In line with the national youth strategy, and general recognition across our sector of the power of local, hyper-local or place-based initiatives, we decided to trial this kind of focus in the fantastic city of Southend-On-Sea. We’ve been working there for 20 years now, and our most recent traditional celebratory event there saw the award of 170 Achievement Awards in one evening: a record for us in the area. One of Southend’s MPs, Bayo Alaba, has been particularly supportive of our work on youth voice, too, and agreed to participate.

Our co-hosts of the Southend event, Izzy and Ealaf

We made Shout-Out Southend youth-led, rather than professionally compered. Two members of our Youth Consultation Panel, Izzy and Ealaf, co-hosted, and that immediately made it more approachable or accessible for the young people in attendance. We incorporated interactivity into the evening’s running order, to capture youth voice and opinion. This included a video-booth space for young people to record their own “shout-outs” (punchy recognitions of young people or youth leaders in Southend), and a “wall of positivity” offering a post-it note based equivalent. We incentivised both to drive participation with a prize for the best, which went down well; and it worked for us too because each activity generated content for us to share the celebration of impact more widely in social channels. Reading or watching back the shout-outs young people give each other or their teachers and youth workers is powerful stuff. (Keep an eye on our social media channels to see a glimpse of these.)

The clearest departure from our standard event format was the inclusion of a panel discussion: a hosted “common-ground” (as opposed to oppositional) conversation between young leaders and local decision-makers and dignitaries. We are generally blessed with strong attendance by such officials at our events – both dignitaries and elected representatives – whose attendance always bestows kudos on the event, and Shout-Out Southend was no exception. Our Youth Trustee, Joseph Pascoe played the Graham Norton role with aplomb, and his guests on the sofa were: Bayo Alaba MP for Southend East; the High Sheriff of Essex, Susie Dutton; Cllr Mandy O’Connor, Southend Cabinet Member for Young People and SEND; Taye, Finance Officer for Southend Youth Council; and Cassie, JPF Grant recipient and WizeUp Youth Advisory Panel member. The conversation was enlightening and rich with insight from the guests’ respective viewpoints and positions of influence – not least, Bayo announcing Southend’s selection as a youth hub, and his explanation of his long-term ambition for Southend to be a place “to return to” – for those who seek opportunities elsewhere. The High Sheriff’s passion for volunteering and Cassie’s use of a JPF Volunteering grant to volunteer in Ghana for Projects Abroad was also striking.

Our five panellists on the night, along with our Youth Trustee as host.

All of our events feature demonstrations of young people’s talents and provide opportunities for them to shine on stage, and we kept true to that. Fantastic musical performances by the Shoeburyness Dynamix, RomeDrone, and Izzy lit up the stage, as did the recitation of her Jack Petchey Speak Out Challenge speech on body image by Alexa, from The FitzWimarc School. The Jack Petchey’s Speak Out Challenge and Glee Club Challenge programmes are hugely popular in Southend, and boost performance skills and confidence to substantial numbers of young people. This was a reminder of just how bold and talented young people are and how they will continue to characterise all of our events.

We’re learning a lot from this venture, and are happy to share what we are learning with other partners in the sector and beyond. Funder support for local convening plays an important part in a wider approach to creating more opportunities for young people to grow in confidence, acquire skills and develop the voice that needs to be heard loud and clear.

The last treat we offered our invitees was influenced by the weather: we learned that an ice cream van can pay a crucial part in helping things along.

A young person with an iced-lolly that has turned her tongue blue.

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