2025 Autumn Newsletter
A note from our CEO:
We would like to share our Autumn 2025 highlights with you, as we near the end of the year and reflect on the beginning of the academic year.
It has been a busy start to the new academic year. We have continued to deliver our coaching and employability activities to young people across our three programmes: FutureMe, Making Strides and Future Leaders. Young people have enjoyed insights into a variety of industries, including construction, finance, and theatre and performing arts.
We have also continued to keep youth voice at the heart of all we do – commencing our Youth Justice co-production project, supporting our Youth Advisory Board and creating opportunities for our alumni network. You can read more about these projects below.
Programme Delivery:
Our core programmes:
This term, young people on our FutureMe, Making Strides and Future Leaders programmes have all received one-to-one coaching and insights into the world of work. We have continued to support young people who are most at risk of being unemployed when they leave school or college to develop the confidence, independence and skills they need to secure employment.
“The experiences I’ve had with ThinkForward where I’ve gone on trips and spoken with other students and professionals has helped me be far more independent and confident. It’s like I know how to go about getting what I want now.”
– FutureMe Student, London
ThinkForward in Action:
We enjoyed hosting a ThinkForward in Action event at our partner school, City of London Academy Islington (COLAI), which gave funders and business partners an opportunity to hear directly from young people about the impact of our FutureMe programme. The young people who attended also benefited from networking with our funders and supporters and hearing their career journeys and advice.
We would like to thank COLAI for hosting the event and all of the incredible young people who shared their stories. We are also grateful to Proskauer for sponsoring this event.
We are looking forward to hosting ThinkForward in Action events in Nottingham and Kent in the Spring and Summer term.
“I’ve enjoyed the ThinkForward in Action. I’ve learnt you can change if you’re not the best when younger, you can still end up in a good job.”
– FutureMe Student, London
Youth Justice project:
This term, we began our Youth Justice project in partnership with the Youth Custody Service. We are facilitating co-production workshops with young people in a Young Offender Institution, to help us understand the barriers they face when leaving these institutions and entering into Employment, Education or Training. We will use these insights to design a programme shaped by the experiences of young people. We are grateful to The Worshipful Company of Weavers and The Fishmongers’ Company’s Charitable Trust for funding this work.
Youth participation:
This term, the 2024/25 Youth Advisory Board (YAB) launched their project: Young Voices, Big Respect – a resource designed to advise adults how to interact and communicate with young people. The YAB invited ThinkForward staff and trustees to a meeting where they presented their project. The resource is featured in our Asset-Based guide, which is shared with our business partners and funders and can be viewed here.
We also hosted our first Alumni Connect event, where previous programme participants came together with their ThinkForward coaches to network and catch up on their journeys since graduating from the programme. At the event, we launched our new Next Steps grant initiative, which will support entrepreneurial alumni members who want to start their own business. We look forward to updating you further on this initiative over the coming year.
Volunteering:
Become a mentor
As mentioned above, we are launching a grant programme for our alumni who are in the early stages of starting up their own business or innovative project.
We would like to offer our alumni 3-4 sessions of business mentoring to support them to develop their business plan and report on how they use their grant. We are looking for volunteer mentors who have experience in entrepreneurship and/or business management to take part in these sessions.
We are planning to run the business mentoring sessions in January, March and April. The sessions will be delivered online between 4pm and 6pm.
To register your interest, please sign up here.
Volunteer of the Year Award
We would like to say a huge congratulations to our volunteer, Stephen Pevsner, who won the London Youth Volunteer of the Year Award.
We nominated Stephen for the award for his commitment to supporting our FutureMe programme. Over the last 8 years, Stephen has supported our partnership with Proskauer, personally mentoring young people on our programmes and advocating for wider team engagement and critical financial support.
Stephen’s mentee said:
“Having Stephen as my mentor was one of the littest times of my life. He changed the way I see myself and my future. I never imagined someone like him, a whole partner in a law firm, would make time for someone like me. I can’t lie I’ve had a tough journey, but Stephen didn’t judge me, he just listened.
He helped me see that where I come from doesn’t have to decide where I end up. We worked on real things like preparing for interview questions, doing my CV, how to present myself and stop swearing so much. He helped me build my confidence and my communication and I won’t ever forget that. He showed me that I actually matter and that I need to start acting like it.”
Thank you London Youth for recognising Stephen and all the other incredible youth work that is taking place across London.
