The funding is intended to achieve the following:
- Reach children and young people who may be disadvantaged due to their physical or intellectual capacity, citizenship status, race, health and life expectancy, sexual orientation or previous criminal activity.
- Reach children and young people who fall between the gaps of high and low attainment and privilege, who are often left without access to opportunities and whose potential is frequently overlooked.
- Encourage organisations to be flexible and creative in their approach, to be bold and try innovative and untested ideas that have the potential to have meaningful impacts and bring young people into their leadership and decision making.
The current funding priorities are:
Providing opportunities and encouragement for young people to access learning and employment
Focus areas include working with those disengaged or excluded from compulsory education to achieve qualifications or training that supports their interests and employment aspirations, and groups where unemployment is demonstrably higher (such as refugees, those with disabilities, school avoiders and young people from traveller communities).
Empowering young people to lead the healthiest lives they can
Focus activities include medium to long-term support to improve and protect their mental health through tailored and small-scale support that meets their individual needs as identified by the young people themselves.
Engaging young people to feel empowered in their choices, to be able to act independently, and to have a voice
Eligible activities include:
- Projects which enable them to develop and demonstrate leadership skills with a practical application.
- Creative projects that enable them to speak out and express their views on key issues, that are presented to the decision-makers and communities they wish to influence.
There is a particular interest in organisations looking for seed funding for new ideas and to help scale up successful pilot projects.