Leap Confronting Conflict - 2017-19 Strategy

Harnessing the transformational power of conflict for a successful future

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Leap Confronting Conflict Strategy 2017-2019

2 3Leap strategy 2017 – 2019 leapcc.org.uk @leap_cc

Our strategy is ambitious and means we can further unleash the talent and potential of young people experiencing conflict in their lives.

Executive summary

Rene ManradgeSenior Trainer

I joined Leap in 1990 when I was at a crossroads. My mother had died the year before and I was reflecting on my life, wondering what I could have achieved if I’d stayed in education after being expelled at 14. So, at 33 I decided to go to college to study art and design. I would sometimes support the younger students, and this sparked an interest in working with young people.

“One of the best things about being a trainer is seeing a lightbulb switch on for a young person”

My journey with Leap started when I saw an invitation to an open day to find out more about a six-week conflict resolution course, followed by a placement in a local youth club.

I became an apprentice trainer, and was invited on the first “Playing with Fire” course. I then joined the Leap training pool, and in 1992 I was part of the team that piloted the first Leadership course in Feltham Young Offenders Institute. As an ex-offender, the work resonated with me. I benefitted from working with senior trainers, one of whom, Nic Fine, was the first positive male role model in my life.

One of the best things about being a trainer is seeing a lightbulb switch on for a young person, and knowing that they may change something about themselves or their lives. Once, when working with a group of girls, I challenged them on the strong language they were using to insult each other with. I started a discussion about using a part of their anatomy as an insult and some of them really began to reconsider their use of the word. It was then that I knew this was what I wanted to do.

As the situation facing young people has become tougher, I’ve seen that, in response, the standards needed for young people to achieve are sometimes lowered so they can still ‘achieve’ something. At Leap, we have held true to the way we work with young people. We do not lower the bar, in fact we raise it. That is how we support and develop young people. We never coast, we challenge the young people we work with, and we hold them accountable for their actions.

“At Leap, we have held true to the way we work with young people. We do not lower the bar, in fact we raise it.”

As a teenager and into my early twenties I was doing some questionable things and had a criminal record. By the time I got to Leap I had changed my life, but Leap made me question who I was and how I did things. It’s where I learnt about being honest with myself and developing integrity. The work is now tied to my life. I don’t need to hide who I am.

Our vision has always been one in which all young people in conflict have routes to positive support that can transform their opportunities. Over the next three years we will focus on four ecosystems where young people are most likely to struggle with conflict, specifically young people who are:

• In care

• Not in mainstream education

• In local communities demonstrating destructive behaviour, including those in gangs

• In prison and other institutions in the secure estate

Looking beyond our core training, by building highly integrated partnerships we will support young people to become successful adults, whether that means finding employment or playing a fuller role in society. We also plan

to increase opportunities for young people within Leap, including for those with criminal convictions.

We will introduce four new workstreams: single gender work (with young women and young men); identity, prejudice and extreme thinking; bullying, including online; and violence in prisons.

We will find opportunities for more preventative work, developing materials and approaches for a wide range of professional training, from teachers to social workers, in order to give adults the skills to help young people manage conflict.

To support every aspect of our work, we will continue to develop our own systems, skills, culture and knowledge. By expanding our investment in monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment we will improve our understanding of the long-term impact we have.

Using an expanded evidence base, we will continue to build our profile and amplify the voice of young people in advocacy to wield greater influence over policy change.

We will continue to build high quality relationships with our funders and investors who value Leap’s work, without whom we would not be able to achieve impact.

Working together we will help young people to turn their lives around and become leaders in our society, and make the world a safer place for us all.


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Figure 1

Conflict:inevitable, useful, transformational

Conflict is inevitable. We all face it – more often than we like to acknowledge. At best, conflict is often seen as embarrassing. At worst, it is seen as dysfunctional and destructive. Of course, conflict can stand in the way of our progress through life. But it can also be positive, transforming our lives for the better.

We need conflict. We need it to have happy, healthy personal relationships that can continue to develop. We need it to fuel some of our best work, to work successfully in a team, to motivate us to develop, to grow and to learn. When we learn to manage the conflict in our lives, we boost our own self-awareness, communicate more constructively and assertively, and strengthen our empathy.

As children become adolescents, their bodies and brains go through dramatic changes; so do the dynamics of their relationships, including the way they understand themselves. All of their relationships change: with their friends, their siblings and the adults around them. It is a time that dramatically increases the likelihood of conflict. But it is also ripe with opportunities for personal, emotional and mental development, including building grit and resilience.1

1. Growing numbers of studies find that a person’s level of ‘grit’ or resilience is as strong a determinant of success as intelligenceEvidence informed policy brief – Character and social mobility, Jubilee Centre, University of Birmingham

Our work

For 30 years, Leap Confronting Conflict has been working to support young people, no matter what challenges they face – or the challenges they present. We aim to unleash their talent and potential and to help them become successful adults and leaders in our society. We prioritise young people who are experiencing negative fallout from conflict and who have complex needs. This includes those at risk of being excluded from school, those who display violent and destructive behaviour, and those in custody and care (Figure 1).

After three decades of experience, we know that a young person who has learned to manage conflict creatively and with confidence, including their own internal conflict, is better equipped to persevere when faced with the challenges life throws at them.

If they are to develop these abilities, however, the adults who live or work with them also need to understand the value of managing conflict. If they are to support young people to thrive, these adults – whether they are prison officers, teachers or guardians – need to understand the way they themselves get caught up in conflict, what upsets them and how they can manage the challenges they face.

Leap Confronting Conflict has been developing frameworks to support young people and the professionals and adults who, in turn, support them.

Our models do not give the participants in our programmes easy answers. Nor do they provide precise tactics to use when faced with

a particular challenge. Instead, our frameworks help people to understand the dynamics at play across a whole range of different situations, whether at work, at home, in a gang or when faced by prejudice or bullying.

Everything we do – every exercise, digital course or coaching session – helps an individual grasp the impact of their past, their instincts and their preferences. Equipped with that knowledge, and in a better frame of mind, they can try to change old patterns, try something new or recognise when they need to seek support. Additionally, our training opens the door for young people to deliberately harness the positive impact of conflict, rather than avoid it. Our training opens

the door for young people to deliberately harness the positive impact of conflict

7leapcc.org.uk @leap_cc6 Leap strategy 2017 – 2019

The environment

Leap aims to work with those young people who have been left behind by wider progress, and who face conflicts that too often become destructive.

More young people are being taken into care and more are being excluded from school. There are very strong correlations between being in care, exclusion from school, risky and criminal behaviour and imprisonment.

Reoffending among young people has increased. Violence in all prisons, including young offender institutes has shot up, with assaults increasing by 34%, and assaults on staff up by 43% in just one year.5

At the same time, there has been a significant fall in investment in services for young people. The young people with whom Leap works – those in the greatest need – are finding that services are more fragmented and less well resourced.

A lack of investment in young people is short-sighted for two reasons.

Firstly, risky behaviours tend to ‘cluster’ – with one problem feeding into another. People whose lives combine disadvantages such as homelessness, substance misuse and offending almost universally face poverty and mental ill-health.6 Participation in a multitude of risky behaviours is associated with low educational attainment, being bullied and emotional health problems, all of which are particular risks for young people.7

Secondly, it overlooks one of society’s greatest assets - the potential, and pivotal, role of young people as leaders.

Bullying

• 50% of young people admit that they have bullied someone else and 30% of them do so on a weekly basis; 69% of young people have witnessed someone being bullied

• 74% of those who have been bullied have been physically attacked and 62% have been cyber-bullied

• Those with disabilities, those from the LGBT community and those from low-income backgrounds are the most likely to be bullied8

• The life outcomes for people who are bullied are poorer than for those who are not: including poorer health, less secure work, and earlier deaths. Being bullied has been shown to directly increase the risk of self-harm by more than 20%9

Education

• In 2015 there were 13,583 young people in Pupil Referral Units (PRUs): 9,620 boys and 3,960 girls. This was an increase of 588 from 2014

• In the year 2011 to 2012, only 1.3% of pupils in alternative education provision achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C, including English and Maths10

• 88% of boys in custody had been excluded from school, 73% had truanted at some time, and 39% were 14 or younger when they last attended school11

The experience of young people in the UK has changed markedly since Leap embarked on its 2014-2016 strategy. Life for more and more of the UK’s 8.3 million young people aged 15 to 242 has changed in key ways.

Rates of teenage drinking, drug use, smoking, pregnancy and suicide are all falling. There are more young people in work, more who are volunteering and more in further education. Successive governments have placed greater emphasis on social mobility, and one result has been that disadvantaged young people are 30% more likely to enter university in 2015 than in 2010, and 65% more likely than in 2005.3

However, our analysis of the most recent and available data that concerns young people reveals that for some – especially those who already face challenges – life is getting more difficult.

Those born in the 1980s are the first generation to start their working years with lower incomes than their parents. Home ownership rates for those under the age of 44 have fallen 17% in the last decade as their housing costs have grown twice as fast as their incomes. In 2016 only one in eight children from low-income backgrounds were likely to become a high income earner as an adult.4

2 2011 census

3 State of the nation, Social mobility commission, November 2016

4 State of the nation, Social mobility commission, November 2016

5 Safety in Custody Statistics Bulletin, Ministry of Justice October 2016

6 Lankelly Chase Foundation’s Hard Edges project, January 2015

7 Cabinet Office

8 Ditch the Label 2015 survey

9 Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, June 2013

10 This is the most recent data available, and it is unlikely that the situation will have changed much in the interim years

11 HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales, Annual Report 2015–16

Young people are one of society’s greatest assets


69,540In March 2015 there were

69,540 children in the care of local authorities, an increase

of 740 on the previous year.13

38% In the year ending March 2014

38% of young people reoffended within a year of their release.

-30% 45% of local authorities have made cuts of at least 30% to services for young people.15

Criminal justice

• The number of young people arrested fell by 13% between March 2014 and March 2015, but 10% of the 950,000 people arrested were aged 10 to 17

• 23% of young people arrested were from minority ethnic groups and almost half of these (11%) were black

• In the year ending March 2015, cautions for possession of weapons rose by 12%

• The reoffending rate for young people has increased by 5.6% since March 2008. In the year ending March 2014, 38% of young people reoffended within a year of their release

The secure estate

• Since 2006/07 the number of children entering the youth justice system for the first time has fallen by 81%

• Those that remain in the system have the most challenging and ingrained behaviour and the most complex needs, yet many staff do not have the skills or experience to support them and staff shortages lead to more time in cells12

• In the year ending March 2015, there were 28.2 restrictive physical interventions per 100 young people – up from 17.6 in March 2010

• There were 7.7 incidents of self-harm per 100 young people by March 2015 – up from 5.3 in March 2010

Care

• In March 2015 there were 69,540 children in the care of local authorities, an increase of 740 on the previous year13

• 55% were boys and 45% girls; 38% were aged between 10 and 15 and 22% were 16 and older

• 75% were living with foster carers, and 12% were in secure units, children’s homes or hostels, residential schools or other settings

Community and youth services

• According to a Unison report14, the number of places for young people in youth services has fallen by 140,000 since 2012

• In their joint report, Losing in the Long Run, National Children’s Bureau, Action for Children and The Children’s Society note that spending by local authorities on early intervention work with children and families has fallen by 31% since 2012, and that 45% of local authorities have made cuts of at least 30% to services for young people15

12 UK Justice Policy Review, Volume 5

13 Children looked after in England, including adoption: 2014-15, Department for Education

14 http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1158579/youth-services-cut-by-gbp387m-in-six-years

15 https://www.actionforchildren.org.uk/resources-and-publications/reports/losing-in-the-long-run/


2017 - 2019Strategic aims

Our purpose: Leap gives young people the

skills to manage conflict in their lives, reduce

violence in their communities and help lead

our society.

The Leap community remains happy with this purpose. For the period 2017-2019, however, Leap will aim for more exact, audacious and measurable impact.

Leap will continue to build the conflict management skills of young people, which will in turn develop their emotional intelligence, confidence, communication and character. But we will go further, supporting people to further their education, find employment, contribute to their communities and build their civic participation. We can only achieve such important, long-term outcomes if we build integrated partnerships with expert organisations that have high quality standards in their delivery, relationships with young people and evaluation.

Aim 1: Give young people and the adults who work with them the skills to manage the conflict in their lives, reduce violence and take advantage of opportunities to thrive in adulthood

Leap will work in four environments or ‘ecosystems’ where we know we will find those young people who are having the most severe struggles with conflict and, for that reason, face poorer life outcomes:

• Those in care

• Those not in mainstream education

• Those displaying destructive behaviour in their communities

• Those in prison and other parts of the secure estate

Young people in care

The 2017-2019 strategy will see Leap introduce a new area of work for young people who have left their families and who are growing up in the care of the state or in temporary accommodation.

In our current programmes, our staff and trainers often work with young people who are struggling with their relationships where

they live, whether with their families, with foster carers, in care homes or in secure accommodation. Many report that our programmes help them to improve those relationships.

We already work with a significant number of young people who are being cared for by the state with foster carers or in care homes.

Our new strategic aim will build on this to work with young people in care where they live. We want to develop a deeper understanding of the challenges they face and develop our programmes to help them unleash their talent, promise and potential.

Young people not in mainstream education

We will continue to work with young people who are not in mainstream education. Across the whole of the last strategic period we worked with young people and teachers in pupil referral units (PRUs). We will continue to drive this work forwards, review our work and analyse ways to improve its impact.

Young people in local communities with destructive behaviour

We will continue to invest our energies in programmes for young people whose struggle with conflict means they develop destructive behaviours directed at themselves or others.

Our main focus will be on growing and developing our long-term Improving Prospects programme and the Leadership & Enterprise (L&E) gangs project that we began in 2016.

Young people in prison and other institutions in the secure estate

Leap will continue to work in prisons and youth offender institutions across the UK with young people, prison officers and other staff to create safer environments, and to support behaviour and attitude change.

Our vision is that every young person in conflict has a route to positive support that can transform their opportunities


Our work on gang activity in the UK, for example, was among the earliest.

In this new strategic period we will continue to investigate a range of subject areas through action research (the very act of carrying out a research process having a positive impact on young people). We will then use this new knowledge to enhance our work in each of the environments in which we work, addressing the following areas:

• Single gender work (with young women and with young men)

• Identity, prejudice and extreme thinking

• Bullying, including online

• Violence in prisons

Aim 3: Develop models of high-impact work with young people, and the adults, professionals and organisations that support them

Conflict and leadership expertise, not just training

The core of Leap’s delivery has been based around its group training since its earliest years, three decades ago. However, we do far more than run group training. We also use our understanding of conflict and the development of character in our one-to-one work, in our publishing and in the digital sharing of our curriculum.

We will share our conflict frameworks and our approach to the development of character though new technologies and other new programme designs.

While training will continue to be a core element of our delivery, our expertise is far wider than this implies, and we will continue to find new ways to develop people’s skills beyond group training.

Aim 2: Achieve excellence in our delivery

The best impact for young people in each ecosystem

To be confident that we can have the greatest impact in unleashing the talents and potential of these young people (by working closely with and listening to them, digesting emerging research and following best practice) we will profoundly develop our understanding of:

• The challenges young people face that hamper their progress towards a successful adulthood

• The state of being or mind they need if they are to engage successfully with our work and also what they need to succeed and lead themselves and others

• What else is available to them

• How we can best work in effective, complementary partnerships with other providers

Understanding emerging issues for young people

Many dynamics inform conflict and Leap has excelled at investigating them and developing new programmes in response. We have trained tens of thousands of young people and professionals over the years in the models that we have developed as a result of our research.

FATIMA18, Leap graduate, pictured above

Before I came to Leap I had a really short fuse. I was doing an apprenticeship but I found it really hard and I couldn’t control my reactions. I ended up feeling depressed and would call in sick to avoid work. I’d left my job to start this apprenticeship so when it didn’t work out I ended up sitting at home, unemployed, with nothing to do.

I realised this needed to change, so I went to an academy to study. I struggled because I have learning difficulties and the teachers didn’t know how to support me. It frightened me sometimes and I felt like I couldn’t do it. I managed to complete my course, but I didn’t know what to do afterwards. My mentor told me about Leap so I found out more and decided to take part.

Coming to Leap was a step forward for me. I met people in similar situations to myself and I realised I wasn’t alone. Everyone had their own story. I took a lot in and shared what I was doing with my friends. They’ve noticed a change in me and how positive I am.

I’ve also seen changes in myself. I’m happy now and I’m starting to understand why I do the things I do and how I can do things differently. Before Leap, I would jump in and react to the smallest situations. Now I try to analyse what’s happening and think it through. I’m using everything I’ve learned to recognise what triggers me and stay calm.

“Coming to Leap was a step forward for me”

I’m proud of myself. I’m thinking straight and staying on my own path. I’m giving myself the chance to try new opportunities. I’ve gone back to studying and I’m planning on going into early childcare. I enjoy working with young people. It makes me happy to help them learn how to express themselves, which is something I couldn’t do when I was younger.

ALEXImproving Prospects Project Worker

Fatima engages really well with our courses and gives it her all. Since graduating she’s become a natural leader and supports the people around her. She’s doing herself justice. I’m really proud of her and can’t wait to see what she goes on to do next.


Young people as leaders

A core Leap belief is in the talent and potential of young people. We know from neuroscientific evidence of the predominance of peer influence during adolescence; who better to lead young people than their peers. Our models have this practice at their heart – in the training room, where people take each other’s leads; in developing young trainers; and in young people leading each other in their communities to more pro-social behaviour.

Young people thriving in adulthood

Over the last few years, the dramatic reduction in statutory youth services has meant much less support for our graduates with their next steps. Leap will now offer routes to other high-quality organisations in which it is in integrated partnerships to support young people to thrive in adulthood. We will partner with organisations that can support young people with:

• Numeracy and literacy

• Further or higher education and life-long learning

• Access to high quality jobs

• Engagement in civic participation and social action

We will continue to find ways to accredit our programmes. This equips young people with the deserved recognition of their development that they can use to open new opportunities.

Prevention as well as intervention

During the last strategy, and in response to the needs and the environment, we continued to focus our efforts increasingly on the young people we can work with to achieve the greatest changes. These are the young people for whom conflict has become destructive and a barrier to reaching adulthood successfully. We now believe that we can achieve even greater impact for the UK by finding opportunities to focus on more work.

Beyond training those who work with young people, we will develop course materials and interventions that can be integrated into a wide range of adult professional training as people embark on their careers. This will, in turn, give them the skills to support the young people with whom they work to manage conflict before it becomes destructive. These adults will be better equipped to support young people develop their character and resilience and succeed in education, jobs, community action and political engagement – all parts of a well-rounded adulthood.

We aim to integrate our conflict management models into the following careers:

• Housing

• National Citizen Service

• Prison

• Probation

• Social work

• Teaching

• Youth work

Geographical reach

Leap runs programmes across the UK in partnership with other bodies, including prisons and other civil society organisations. We run our own open programme, Improving Prospects, across London.

Over the next three years we will look for ways to do even more work outside London, providing that it is sustainable, with a particular focus on opportunities that complement our work in prisons. We may, for example, work with a cluster of local prisons, potentially achieving even greater impact if we also worked in the communities where young people settle on their release. We will continue to strive to embed ourselves in local communities over a period of years.

Aim 4: Invest in developing Leap’s systems, skills, culture and knowledge

Theory, monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment

Leap is committed to evaluating its work so that it can improve the design of its programmes to achieve better impact and outcomes for young people and our partners. This strategy will increase investment in this area and we will:

• Make sure that monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment are integrated into all of our work to improve its targeting and impact; an integral part of that will be theories of change for each of our programmes

• Invest in Leap’s infrastructure so that it becomes a matter of course to record, analyse and report against our programmes and their outcomes

• Improve our measurements to understand the longer-term impacts we must achieve to ensure a successful adulthood for today’s young people. We need to understand what and how to measure, for example, their entry into work, education, social action and civic participation

• Reinforce our understanding of how character is improved: for example, whether we achieve improved mental well-being

Development for all personnel

At its heart, Leap is focussed on personal growth and learning and so is also committed to the development of its community of personnel: its trainers, staff and trustees. We will continue to invest in our staff and trainers and in the development of our governance. This will include:

• Trainer development, including supervision; a competency framework and growth of the skills needed in the trainer pool for delivery of this strategy.

• Management and specialist training for each of the professional functions in the team

Culture

For many years, Leap has benefited from deep engagement with young people beyond its delivery, including in the development of this strategy. Leap will continue to find real roles for young people in each of its teams and functions. This also means finding ways to support people with criminal convictions to find roles at Leap. We will guard the high quality of the collaborative, inclusive culture in the organisation by:

• Continuing to be aware of, and invest in, the culture even as Leap grows its work and consequently its team of personnel

• Making sure that young people remain a key part of decision making, and the evolution of Leap’s culture

Development of our ICT capacity and capabilities

As the organisation grows the complexity of its work and associated evaluation, as the team grows, and as it begins new strands of digital delivery, it is essential that it invests in its technologies capacity and capabilities. We will invest in:

• Improved CRM

• Enhanced ability to record, analyse and publish our evaluation data

• Data protection best practice

• ICT systems and security

• The right software and hardware

Safeguarding

Leap works with young people under the age of 18 who present a range of challenging behaviours and vulnerabilities; we also work with people under 26 who may be vulnerable. We will:

• Further develop our safeguarding and child protection processes and practice as our work develops

• Manage and plan for all risk associated with our work

• Strive to have a culture where everybody has responsibility for a nurturing environment in which young people can thrive

• Continue to have both a senior manager and a trustee take a lead on child protection, safeguarding and support for vulnerable adults

We will make sure that young people remain a key part of decision making at Leap.


The course wasn't what I expected because I didn't know we were going to learn so much from it and have so much fun. Young female refugee

Since completing the training, the female refugees and asylum seekers have received funding from The Children's Society to share what they have learned with the wider community.

VAL FLOYChief Operating Officer at The Children’s Society

It’s been fantastic to partner with Leap. We have hugely benefited from integrating their expertise in youth conflict across our teams. By introducing training throughout The Children’s Society, from the senior management team to the young people who access our services, we have seen a cultural shift in the way we confront conflict.

“ ...we have developed ground-breaking conflict centred interventions for the young people”

We are working with Leap to empower our staff to understand their own triggers and relationship with challenging behaviour, so that when confronted with anger they are better able to respond. Two hundred of our frontline staff will have been through Leap training to support their

work with young people. Our senior management team also had bespoke training around dealing with organisational change, and the internal and interpersonal conflict that this can create.

Additionally, we have developed ground-breaking conflict centred interventions for the young people that access our services. We have run successful training in a pupil referral unit with young men, and have worked with female refugees and asylum seekers who are at risk of sexual exploitation. I am impressed at how hard everyone has worked to tailor the training to each group’s specific needs and circumstances.

The fact that Leap has been able to tailor their training to all these different groups just proves that conflict is something that is relevant for everyone, and that understanding your relationship to conflict is the first step towards making changes.

Aim 5: Secure income for our work sustainably

Leap has grown its income in recent years: from £1 million in 2014 to £1.2 million in 2015 and £1.4 million in 2016. We aim to continue to grow our income in order to achieve a deeper and wider impact for the benefit of young people and to help create a safer society. We will:

• Build excellent relationships of trust and understanding with funders, donors and customers to achieve impact for young people

• Achieve good returns on investment for the resources we spend on generating income

• Make sure we have a wide diversity of income sources to build our financial sustainability

Trust and foundation income

As many trusts take an increasingly strategic approach to funding, we will seek to deepen existing relationships and develop new ones.

We will focus on trusts interested in long term impacts and secure funds for delivering our work and undertaking innovative action research.

Sales

We have recently increased our sales capacity, creating paid partnerships with a growing number of prisons as well as local authorities, alternative education providers and major national charities.

We will continue to prioritise training to help prisoners and prison staff address the growing problem of violence. We will aim to link this work to the related interests of Police and Crime Commissioners, Probation Services and Community Rehabilitation Companies.

Major donor income

Our team of pioneering philanthropists also volunteer their time to encourage others from within their networks to donate to Leap. This growing group of Leap friends also provides valuable expertise, and access to companies and key opinion leaders.

Corporate sponsorship

Our new strategy for working with companies will be rolled out during 2017-2019. We will build on our excellent relationships with companies, including Old Mutual Global Investors and Bloomberg. In particular, we will create partnerships with pioneering companies that have an interest in young people, diversity and building a safer society.

We will look for opportunities for the young people we work with to find jobs, traineeships and apprenticeships with our corporate partners – integrated with the progression routes function of our programmes.

Corporate sales

We will roll out our new programme of conflict management training for companies. This is Leap’s social enterprise model, helping corporate leaders to become excellent at managing conflict. We plough the surplus income generated back into our work to achieve yet more impact for young people.

Aim 6: Develop a well-targeted, high-quality profile

Leap will continue to invest in generating a high profile for its work to:

• Support engagement of young people in our programmes

• Attract excellent partners to support the outcomes of our work

• Secure more customers for our social enterprise

• Attract more high-quality donors

• Improve the attractiveness of Leap as a place to work or volunteer

• Increase our credibility when we influence changes in practice, policy and commissioning

Aim 7: Develop our influence on policy and practice

To contribute to systemic change in the world of young people for whom conflict is a disadvantage we will:

• Work with partners that support young people to make successful transitions to adulthood

• Champion the talent of all young people and their potential to lead society

• Support policies and initiatives that develop the skills of adults that work with young people

• Use our growing evidence base to inform policy and practice

• Ensure that international good practice and emerging thinking supports the development of our own programmes and policy voice

18 Leap strategy 2017 – 2019

Training for adults:

building confidence and skills for those who support young people

Support for young people:

giving young people the skills and

confidence to thrive

Innovation and influence:

growing our expertise and using it to influence

practice and policy

Operational model

The bulk of our work will remain focussed on developing young people’s skills to manage conflict, their character and resilience and to become successful adults.

To support this we will also train adults who work with young people to understand their own relationship with conflict. We will equip them with the skills to lead, challenge and develop young people who are facing conflict.

Finally we will aim to influence practice and policy more widely. Our increasingly robust evidence is giving us more confidence to find more strategic ways to equip those who support young people with the frameworks they need to achieve the best outcomes. For example we will try to encourage the teacher and prison officer training colleges to include our frameworks in their curricula. We will build modular, replicable training that we can share with other organisations in ways that are sustainable. We will use the same evidence to influence the development of local and national policy for the best outcomes for young people.

Figure 2


Where/how

45

54

600

375

200

1,274

Young people

60

90

420

530

400

1,500

Adults*

46% - £1,020,000 Trusts

21% - £460,000 Major donors

23% - £500,000 Sales

9% - £200,000 Corporate & small donors

1% - £30,000 Other

Total income£2,210,000

Number of people we will work with in 2019

• To build young people’s knowledge, creativity and confidence to manage conflict and reduce violence

• To support young people to develop their sense of self and identity and to unleash their potential

• To enable young people to lead themselves, their peers and others

• To build knowledge, creativity and confidence of adults to support their work with young people

• To improve relationships between young people and those around them

Core aims

• Improved skills to manage conflict

• Greater understanding of violence and conflict

• Increased ability to use strategies to avoid conflict

• Increased aspirations

• Increased critical-thinking and decision-making skills

• Increased motivation to engage with positive opportunities

• Greater understanding of choices and consequences of their behaviour

• Enhanced sense of personal responsibility

Core outcomes

Young people in alternative education

• Improved behaviour

• Increased attendance

• Improved attainment

• Improved communication between young people and staff

• Improved re-entry into mainstream education

• Reduced bullying


• More stable and sustained placements

• Improved relationships between young people and their carers and families

• More engagement in employment, education and training

• Reduced involvement in the criminal justice system


Young people being destructive in our communities

• Reduced violence

• Young people lead safer lives

• Less offending (individuals & in groups)

• Young people take a lead in creating safer communities

• Better engagement in education, employment and training

• Improved relationships with others

• Increased participation in social action

Young people in the secure estate

• Reduced violence

• Improved relationships between staff and prisoners

• Prisoners are more able to engage with a rehabilitative culture

• Reduced offending


Impacts

• Young people become successful adults

• Safer society

• Positive environments for young people to thrive

• Less extremist thinking

• Healthier personal relationships

• Improved mental well-being

Longer term impact

In care

In alternative education

In the community

In the secure estate

Through new digital learning approaches

Total

2019 target income By 2019: Action Research

We will have gathered significant momentum and reinforced our reputation for programmes and curricula to support young people to thrive when they face:

• Gender-related power struggles

• Risks of extreme thinking and challenges around identity

• Violence in prisons

• Bullying

We will have further developed Leap programmes that complement and improve the experience of young people so they can unleash their potential in the following ecosystems:

• In care

• Exclusion from mainstream education

• Local communities

• The secure estate

By 2019: Influence on practice and policy

As a result of both our enhanced evidence and our deeper insights into the ecosystems where we work we will have influenced the development of policy, practice and commissioning around young people and the services provided for them by the state.

By 2019: Profile

Leap will have become recognised as a ‘go to’ source for solutions to youth conflict:

• We will have helped to drive the news agenda around youth conflict

• We will have become recognised by a significant part of the voluntary and state sectors as a partner of choice in the ecosystems in which we work

• We will have gained reputation among commercial sectors as a leader in training teams in conflict management

By 2019: A national presence, locally embedded

By the start of 2019, Leap will have continued to deliver its work nationally with its partners around the UK. We also plan to deliver our services in a cluster of settings, such as groups of local prisons and with Police and Crime Commissioners.* Such as professionals who work with young people or foster carers.

Success by 2019: Targets


Achieving significant impact for

young people and adults:

Working for change with

young people in different ecosystems:

Supporting systemic

change for young people:

How we will achieve

excellence in our work:

Build youth engagement throughout Leap and ensure excellent safeguarding for young people

Develop Leap's conflict expertise beyond its core training

Pursue best practice in personnel and team development

Invest in high-performing, well-supported personnel

Ensure sound financial health

Increase investment in impact assessment to ensure cost-effective delivery

Strive for excellence in our funding and sales, building high-quality relationships to increase our income

Maintain and enhance our high and well-respected profile with relevant stakeholders

Strive for excellence in high-impact, effective partnerships

Key partners:

Experts in social research

Statutory bodies

Other civil society organisations

Academic bodies

Companies

Young people to manage conflict, reduce violence and become successful adults

Adults to achieve significant impact in their work for young people

Develop gender power-related conflict work

Develop identity and extreme thinking work

Support young people around bullying, including online

Introduce new models for participants to lead a reduction of violence in prisons

Key partners:

Young people

Adults who work with young people

Civil-society partners

Academic partners

Digital experts


Young people not in mainstream education

Young people who display destructive behaviour in our local communities

Young people in prison, youth offender institutions and other parts of the secure estate

Young people across the UK in areas where we can cluster and embed our work locally

Key partners:

Local Councils’ children’s departments, youth offending teams, housing

Academies, council education teams

National Offender Management Service (NOMS), Youth Justice Board (YJB), secure estate

Courts

Wide range of other civil-society organisations

Police and Crime Commissioners

Develop professional practice on prevention

Use the evidence of our impact to support excellent policy development for young people

Key partners:

Parliamentarians, ministers

Whitehall and local civil servants

Think tanks and key political influencers

Civil-society partners

Organisations, like Teach First, working to improve performance across a professional sector

Our strategy in a page


Creative We’re innovative and open in the way we work with people, bringing fun, energy and inspiration to everything we do.

ResponsiveWe’re flexible, working with the grain of the context and goals of young people and our partners to deliver great work.

ConfrontationalWe hold young people to account for their actions and we stick with them, providing the tough love that will help them reach their full potential.

Our four core principles are both practical and aspirational. They are clearly reflected in the conduct of our frontline practitioners, in our projects and throughout Leap’s structures, procedures and partnerships. They have been informed by conflict resolution and peace-building values as well as the first-hand experience of our work over the past 30 years.

Our values

Core operating principles

Developing potential

This means a commitment to: • Developing yourself and empowering others

• Taking a lead in your life

• Working for the best, in and for yourself and others

• Working with others to recognise the potential in themselves

Being responsible

In practice this means: • Being accountable for your words and actions at all times

• Keeping your word and dealing with your mistakes

• Recognising and owning your own thoughts and feelings

• Listening to people, recognising the place from which they are speaking, and the place we are speaking to

Creating communication

In practice this means: • Expressing yourself fully and effectively in all your interactions

• Articulating thoughts, feelings and requests responsibly

• Creating and maintaining effective relationships


Building community

In practice this means:

• Valuing and welcoming difference

• Developing an understanding of the relevance of others’ backgrounds

• Discovering common ground and building appropriate and realistic agreements

• Giving and receiving support

• Contributing to the lives of others and allowing others to contribute to yours


Our values and operating principles

Our purpose

Leap gives young people the skills to manage conflict in their own lives, reduce violence in their communities, and help lead our society.


During 2016 the Leap team worked hard to create the best possible strategy.

We are incredibly grateful to James Crowley and Graham Read who supported the senior management team in the design of the whole strategic planning process, who undertook thirty or so stakeholder interviews about the environment and Leap’s development, and who facilitated the staff and trainer away day and the Board away day. Thanks too for comments on the structure and content of the draft. We simply couldn’t have done it without you.

This strategy wouldn’t have been possible without the contributions from everyone who gave up their time to reflect on the conclusions we had made. In particular: Hannah Alcock, Adam Berry, Richard Buxton, Susannah Clark, Régis Cochefert, Peter Englander, Jan Doole, Emma Farnesi, Anna Feuchtwang, Charo Garzon, Charlotte Hill, Julian Ide, Jane Leek, Berni McGrew, Mark Norbury, Mukesh Oza, Tom Paterson, Ruth Pryce, Sharon Shea, Carrie Stokes, Austin Taylor-Laybourn, Paddy Walker, Alex Walters, Karl Wilding and Mark Woodruff.

Thanks to David Mortimer for the excellent environmental analysis that he conducted, which was central to our understanding of the trends and political themes that are affecting the future of young people.

Thank you to the groups of young people who contributed their time, insight and intelligence about the experience of being young and facing conflict in four focus groups.

Special recognition needs to go to Leap’s senior trainers, Tony Weekes and Jassy Denison and Leap’s young trainers, Amyn Ali and Demi Ryan who fully participated in both away days.

The wonderful images in this document were taken by Slater King and Tabatha Fireman.

I would personally like to thank the whole staff team and, in particular, the senior management team for their exceptional hard work and creativity during this process.

Thomas Lawson Chief Executive

Thank you


We value the strong partnerships we have with charities, other organisations and individuals. If you would like to support us to achieve the ambitious impact that we have set out in our strategy, please get in touch.

To find out more please contact:

T 020 7561 3700

E [email protected]

W www.leapcc.org.uk

@leap_cc

Leap Confronting Conflict, Wells House (Unit 7), 5-7 Wells Terrace, Finsbury Park, London, N4 3JU

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Documents

Leap Confronting Conflict - 2017-19 Strategy