Our Impact
“The Agency has been a life-changing experience for our care leavers. This programme hugely raises both self-esteem and aspiration, in a safe and inclusive environment.”
— Amelia Willis Wandsworth Care Leaving Team
The Agency has been rigorously tested and evaluated across England, Wales and Northern Ireland by Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) and small businesses, national theatres, sports and recreation services and community centres, building and non-building based organisations, theatres and makers’ spaces.
The model has brought together communities from warring favelas; built connections in Belfast across community lines; and started to rebuild communities damaged by gang crime, far right groups and post-industrial decline. Because The Agency is a methodology for developing projects inspired by local communities and is delivered and adapted by local organisations, it can work everywhere.
Key aspects of The Agency
1.
The Agency methodology puts young people from some of the most underserved areas of the UK at the centre of social change, using an asset-based approach to achieve sustainable, local change through young peoples’ life experience, community resources, culture and passion.
2.
The Agency supports young people on an individual level to improve their opportunities but also creates a collective force for systematic change, mobilising young people around social issues they care about.
3.
The Agency changes the way cultural and community organisations work with young people by adopting more inclusive, co-created, collaborative working practices across their organisations.
4.
The Agency uses creativity as its key currency to unlock innovation, helping young people to achieve their potential and future success in education, employment and enterprise.
5.
The Agency is a tool to create robust networks within a locality where young people, cultural organisations and communities work together around shared goals and values.
What does the money support?
Young people
Inputs
£30 weekly stipend
316 hours of creative training sessions
20 hours of mentoring time with industry professionals
128 hours of producing support to help realise their projects
Attend an annual national gathering of young change makers
Access to high-profile networks
Outputs
Improved local and professional networks
Project that benefits their communities
Hard and soft skill development to improve their employment, education and enterprise opportunities after the programme
Increased sense of agency in what they are able to achieve and what is open and accessible to them
Shift in perception about their communities as places of opportunity for them
Organisations
Outputs
New partnerships developed with local organisations
Facilitated training and experience in co-creation practice
Improved connection to community needs in the local area
New methods and experience gained for working with local communities
Inputs
3-day intensive training for staff
A training toolkit
Weekly mentoring calls
Twice yearly CPD days with national network
Communities
Outputs
Develops culture of investment into local economy, encouraging Agents to support local goods and services
New community leaders
3 new community projects each year
3 new training and employment opportunities
Inputs
£6,000 commissioning investment from Agents’ projects
£1,000 investment to improve local infrastructure
Hear from our Agents
Prince Agyei
ViZION
Dulcie Usher
Horizon Retreats
Key outputs in numbers
Funding invested in Agent’s projects
£118,547
Number of jobs created
127
Total Number of Agents
266
Funded projects still running
34
Total community members engaged
19,064
Total number of Agents who took part in funded projects