During the pandemic London Early Years Foundation supported parents to continue their child’s learning at home, as 24 of its nurseries closed. The foundation speedily developed a digital Home Learning service including videos, activities, and tips for parents to do with their child at home. In total, 35 hours of videos were viewed over 27,000 times, and there were 10,000 visits to the home learning page. Virtual playdates were also run for children unable to attend nursery from 15 Hub nurseries which remained open.

The Shepherd’s Hut’s amazing outdoor space includes a meadow, vegetable beds, mud and water and hammocks, as well as a wild area for exploration, a tree swing, a campfire circle and tool workshop. The environment has been driven by children’s own needs and interests and allows their innate inquisitiveness to develop, while at the same time making magical memories and protecting emotional wellbeing. So far, the setting has reached children from 59 families and plans to engage at least 150 families by 2024.

Young People’s Pathway is a multi-agency service across North Yorkshire for young people aged 16 to 25 who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The YPP network includes district and borough councils, social care, probation, police, health, North Yorkshire Safeguarding Board, youth services and education providers. It provides support to reconnect young people with their families where it is safe to do so, and accommodation and support for up to two years where homelessness can’t be avoided. So far more than 700 young people have been supported in this way.

Tutors United aims to use the power of tutoring to smash learning barriers and reduce educational inequality, enabling every child to succeed. The organisation hires, trains and pays university students to deliver lessons to children in Years 4 to 6. It provides tutoring for young people from low-income and migrant backgrounds and those with English as an additional language, through partnerships with housing associations. Tutors United has hired and trained over 310 students and provided free private tutoring to 1,460 children under the Young Residents Programme.

Led by young people, for young people, Comics Youth CIC’s Marginal Leadership Programme is a mentorship initiative giving underrepresented young people the opportunity to express themselves through comics, artwork and writing. In one year, the project has supported 125 children and young people to receive coaching and mentoring and a further 12,000 have been reached through publishing campaigns and creative content. Evaluation shows 95 per cent of young people report using better coping strategies to manage their emotions.

Journeys of Destiny is a theatrical performance that tells the true story of Saad Al-Kassab, whose family escaped Syria in 2011. The project, which involved actors performing with Year 6 children, toured schools throughout the East Midlands. It aimed to highlight the experiences of young refugees and to build understanding of the resilience needed to adapt, accept change and succeed. Judges praised the way the projects used drama and music to help people understand cultural issues, saying “the passion really comes across.”

Generation Girls is an empowerment programme for girls with learning disabilities attending SEN schools. The 10-week programme uses a mix of drama and peer-led education to explore the issues that matter to young women and aims to create a safe space where girls can express themselves. The aim is to support young women to better understand their bodies, learn about boundaries and healthy relationships, and improve their confidence, as well as to identify warning signs of abuse and manipulation.

MYTIME organises fun activity days and weekend retreats catering for 20 children at a time, allowing young carers to gather together and build supportive friendships. At these events, young carers take part in a wide range of activities such as rock-climbing, ice-skating and bowling. In reaction to Covid-19 the charity launched a weekly Zoom Youth Group and provided young carers without internet access with laptops and delivered food to those in need.

The Level Up service helps steer Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic young men away from risk-taking activities, crime and violent behaviour. The project helps them to develop confidence and cultural identity, make positive choices and improve their mental health and wellbeing. Group members have designed and produced their own limited-edition T-shirts, mugs and certificates and produced music videos which do not use offensive language, promote gang culture or glorify criminal activity.

Streetwise Young People’s Project’s Level Up initiative recruits young men aged between 14 and 19 as Level Up Champions to act as role models, designing creative ways to engage other young men and helping to deliver outreach sessions to schools. They encourage their peers to access early support and guidance that helps them to develop confidence, cultural identity and make positive lifestyle choices.

West End Women and Girls Centre is creating a network of young Domestic Violence Champions who support their peers, campaign about domestic abuse and run their own awareness assemblies. Four Peer Educators deliver preventative domestic abuse and healthy relationship workshops to young women in schools, colleges, youth groups and children’s homes across Northumbria. The project has reached 2,400 individuals who have gone on to spread the word to at least 5,000 more.

In 2017, Sandwell Virtual School developed a partnership with the local Connexions team and children’s trust to establish the Sandwell Careers Interview Guarantee for children in care. All children in care receive targeted careers advice and guidance, starting in the year in which they decide their GCSE options. One-to-one interviews allow young people to discuss their ambitions, explore different careers and job opportunities. The project has worked with more than 150 young people so far, with the percentage of looked-after children who are Neet falling substantially.

Working with charity GamCare, the Young Gamers and Gamblers Education Trust aims to ensure that, over the next four years, all 11- to 19-year-olds will receive at least one session of gambling awareness education. As part of the National Gambling Education Programme, launched last April, the trust delivers evidence-led, evaluated and accredited workshops to professionals who work with young people. The trust has reached more than 1,500 practitioners so far, and aims to train 13,492 over the four-year programme.

3D Drumchapel supports around 1,000 children and adults, including young first-time mothers and vulnerable children, with issues including domestic abuse, addictions, and marital breakdown. The charity’s services include peer support groups, parenting programmes, play sessions and one-to-one support. Judges praised 3D Drumchapel’s wide range of support, community capacity building, and the way it equips and empowers individuals, as well as the organisation’s compassionate ethos.

The House Project supports care leavers to refurbish and move into their own homes. Young people taking part in the project also complete an accredited programme focusing on developing the skills that they need to live independently. So far, seven young people have moved into their own home or are awaiting keys. The judges said of Wolverhampton’s scheme: “It’s a smart approach to getting young people ‘owning’ their own space and feeling it is somewhere they want to be.”

Charity StreetDoctors equips young people at risk of youth violence with the skills to save lives, and empowers them to make more informed decisions about how to keep themselves and others safe. It delivers peer-to-peer training in emergency first-aid through a network of young healthcare volunteers, such as student nurses, paramedics and doctors. Last year, StreetDoctors partnered with 319 organisations, including youth offending teams, schools and pupil referral units, to deliver 932 emergency first-aid training sessions.

County Durham Youth Justice Service’s Parent Support Group was set up five years ago after consultation with parents and carers to offer a different, engaging and effective form of support. The ten-week programme is aimed at parents and carers whose young person is in trouble or at risk of getting into trouble with the police. Sessions aim to boost the confidence of attendees and their parenting skills, and improve relationships. All participants said they had learned new skills, while 93 per cent said they could better manage their young person’s challenging behaviour.

Fight for Peace’s Special Scholarship Programme offers intensive support to 16- to 24-year-olds heavily involved in crime and violence in Newham. A 10-month intensive programme delivered by a dedicated team of youth workers includes boxing and martial arts training, personal development workshops, financial support, enrolment onto a formal education programme and one-to-one mentoring. None of the young people on the 2019 cohort reoffended during the project or in the three months after it ended.

Leicester City Council’s Rights and Participation Service wanted to promote its new approach to working with children and young people, focusing on children’s right to have their voices heard. Working with production company Badshoes Film, the service developed a film, Was Not Heard. The film’s key message is that not only must professionals listen to children but must also act on what they have heard. The script was written by a young person and drew on young people’s opinions. The production is being used in training for the social care and education departments.

The Children’s Society’s week-long Look Closer campaign aimed to raise awareness of child exploitation in public spaces. Train and coach stations, and motorway service stations are key points for County Lines exploitation. Throughout the campaign The Children’s Society worked with multiple partners. For example, East Midlands Special Operations Unit shared targeted geographic areas which would benefit from the campaign. Specialist information was used to write blog pages, articles and social media updates.

Rochdale Borough Council’s Complex Safeguarding Team brings together multi-agency child sexual exploitation team Sunrise, innovation team Achieving Change Together and Greater Manchester Police organised crime team Challenger. The team includes specialist police officers and detectives, social workers, a specialist CSE nurse, parenting workers and a psychotherapist. It works with around 107 young people at any given time and prevention and awareness raising work aims to reach 33,000 young people in Rochdale and more across Greater Manchester.

Sixteen-year-old Nina Andersen set up the Community Senior Letters project in April 2020, matching primary schools with care homes so that letters and drawings can be sent to the elderly residents. Nina signed up more than 100 primary schools and 90 care homes in 18 London boroughs. Schools and care homes outside London have also got involved in the project, which enables generations to connect by sharing personal stories and details, combats loneliness and teaches children empathy, care and kindness. Judges described the project as “remarkable”.

On top of his fulltime job at Transport for London, Giles Hobart plans and leads the provision of social clubs, respite breaks and community services for children with disabilities, as lead youth worker at TAG Youth Club for Disabled Young People. During the first lockdown, Giles personally delivered 122 online activity hours, as well as the usual weekly two-hour Friday night youth and junior clubs via Zoom. There were 226 one-to-one online sessions delivered to 24 individuals, more than 700 handwritten letters for those who found Zoom too overwhelming, and 127 one-to-one outdoor sessions over the summer.

Comics Youth aims to empower marginalised children and young people to make their voices heard through a range of creative activities including zine making, illustration and activism-based sessions. In the past 12 months, they have published zines and comics on topics such as overcoming addiction, self-injury and living in foster care, with young people playing a central role in these. Its response to Covid has included the creation of an online community forum, radio show, digital safe spaces campaign and resource packs sent to more than 1,500 young people.