First National Youth Strategy Launched in 20 Years
It’s been two decades since England last had a National Youth Strategy. Today’s launch of the new National Youth Strategy for 2025 marks a long-awaited moment for young people and the youth sector.
Young Hammersmith & Fulham (Young H&F) warmly welcomes the publication of the government’s new National Youth Strategy. After two decades without a national framework for young people, it is truly encouraging to see a commitment that recognises both the scale of the need and the power of youth voice, place-based delivery and trusted relationships.
We are particularly encouraged by the strategy’s ‘Seen and heard’ pillar and its clear focus on putting young people at the heart of decision-making. This principle is deeply embedded across our work as a local Young People’s Foundation. For the past six years, Young H&F has delivered its Young Grant Makers programme, enabling young people to take real control of £50,000 of funding each year, deciding which local youth organisations receive investment. This is not empty or symbolic participation - it is direct decision-making that shapes provision across our borough. We are proud to already be advancing this agenda locally and welcome its elevation to national policy.
Working across a network of over 100 local voluntary youth organisations, we see both the extraordinary impact of youth work and the intense pressure the sector continues to face. After years of underinvestment, workforce instability and rising complexity of need, the strategy’s renewed recognition of youth work as a distinct profession is important and necessary. We echo sector voices calling for sustained investment, fair pay, improved conditions and long-term job security for youth workers if this ambition is to be realised.
“After two decades without a national youth strategy, we are hugely encouraged to see young people firmly back on the national agenda. The renewed focus on youth voice, place-based approaches and decision-making, as well as the youth workforce, is heartening. At Young H&F, we see every day what is possible when local organisations, partners and communities are properly connected and supported to work around young people. National ambition now needs to be matched with sustained, long-term investment in local infrastructure, youth work and the organisations that turn strategy into lived change for young people in our borough.”
We also welcome the strategy’s emphasis on place-based approaches, recognising that young people’s lives are shaped locally -through access to safe spaces, trusted adults and community-based organisations. As a borough-based Young People’s Foundation, our role is to strengthen the ecosystem around young people. We help to align funders, public and private sector bodies and voluntary and community sector organisations to work more effectively together. National ambition will only succeed if local infrastructure is properly resourced to turn policy into practice.
Finally, we are strongly aligned with the strategy’s commitment to moving from fragmented systems to a more collaborative approach across statutory services and non-statutory services. The ambition to work ‘as one team’ around young people, sharing information, data and best practice, reflects what we see as essential at local level. We hope that Young People’s Foundations will be recognised as instrumental partners in this landscape, helping to translate national ambition into coordinated, place-based action that meets the real needs of young people in their local communities.
This is a powerful moment for the youth sector. Turning strategy into impact now relies on delivery, sustained funding and meaningful partnership with young people and the organisations that work with them. Young H&F stands ready to play our part - amplifying youth voice, convening the sector, and ensuring that the commitments within this strategy translate into real, lived change for young people in Hammersmith & Fulham.