£246,706 backs youth-led change across three Tees Valley towns

Two Tees Valley organisations have each secured £123,353 for three years of youth-led work designed to strengthen belonging, leadership and community connection.

Point North has awarded the grants to Middlesbrough Football Club Foundation and The Key through Lead the Change, a UK-wide programme focused on communities affected by division. Together, the two local awards are worth £246,706.

A stronger voice for young people in Middlesbrough

Middlesbrough Football Club Foundation will use its grant to expand a recently established youth panel. Members will develop leadership and communication skills, while helping to influence the support available to young people across the Tees Valley.

The panel is expected to organise three social-action events in each year of the programme. Point North says those events will involve young people from communities affected by the unrest of 2024, with work around inclusion, community cohesion and online safety.

A new youth club is also planned for Newport ward in Middlesbrough. The project will create a regular, welcoming place for young people and support the development of a Newport youth board, giving participants a formal route to shape decisions that affect their neighbourhood.

Young people turning ideas into local action

The Key’s Youth Action Unlocked programme will work with almost 300 people aged 11 to 25 across Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Darlington. It will build on earlier Youth Action Unlocked and Unity in the Community work.

Youth-led “hack” events will help participants identify local challenges, including safety, inequality and division. They will then receive support to turn their ideas into funded social-action projects. The stated aim is to strengthen relationships, increase young people’s sense of safety and belonging, and widen access to leadership and skills.

Part of a three-year national programme

Lead the Change is a £3.4 million initiative backed by BBC Children in Need and eight funding partners. UK Community Foundations says £2.6 million has now been awarded to 21 organisations in the first phase, with each organisation receiving £123,353 for three years.

The 21 projects were selected by a panel of ten young grant-makers aged 19 to 25. Nationally, the programme is being delivered through 17 community foundations and is intended to create safe spaces, support youth-led action and improve digital literacy, including young people’s ability to challenge harmful or misleading material online.

Applicants were assessed on youth leadership, safeguarding, trauma-informed practice and their ability to sustain the work. The programme particularly sought organisations rooted in places where young people have faced racism, xenophobia or Islamophobia, with the wider aim of rebuilding trust without treating young people simply as recipients of services.

What happens next

The latest announcements set out the planned scale and shape of both Tees Valley projects, but delivery results are not yet available. The important test over the next three years will be how much decision-making power young people hold, whether the planned spaces remain accessible, and what lasting links are built between participants and their communities.

Point North is coordinating Lead the Change in Hartlepool, Darlington and Middlesbrough. Information about the national programme and its funded places is available from UK Community Foundations and BBC Children in Need.