London Youth is a network of diverse community youth organisations serving young people of all backgrounds right across the capital.

Their mission is to support and challenge young people to become the best they can be.

Their vision is that all young Londoners grow up healthy, able to navigate a fulfilling career and make a positive contribution in their communities.

They support them to develop the confidence, resilience and relationship skills they need to do this, delivering with and through their network of community youth organisations and at their two residential centres.

They work with all young people but place a particular emphasis on those who wouldn’t otherwise have access to the kind of opportunities they offer.

Since 1887, their team has worked with their member youth clubs to offer young people a wide range of high quality opportunities for learning and fun and to build strong trusted relationships with adults and their peers. 

They grew from the Ragged Schools movement of the 19th century, inspired by the simple idea that every young person, irrespective of background and circumstance, has something to gain from somewhere to go, something to do and someone to talk to.

They spent the twentieth century as two separate charities, The Federation of Boys’ Clubs and The Union of Youth Clubs (which was pretty much for girls). They got it together in 1999 to create The Federation of London Youth Clubs. That’s still their legal name, though they prefer London Youth.

Maybe more than a million of young Londoners have been through their doors at one time or another. They’re proud of their history. Not least because they are the inheritors of an awesome tradition – helping young people become the best they can be for more than 100 years. Youth work’s not a complicated idea. It’s just a very good one.

Strategy and Principles

They want all young Londoners to have the best of this incredible capital city; for it to invest in their potential, encourage them as leaders in their communities, and open up opportunities for them to thrive.

They deliver their mission through four strategic objectives:

1. - Membership Development – Developing, training, connecting and quality assuring their membership network to deliver good youth work
2. - Opportunity – Creating a broad and inclusive range of quality opportunities for young people in social action, sports development, employability and outdoor education
3. - Voice – Ensuring their expertise and the on-the-ground voices of youth workers and young people are reflected in public policy, practice and opinion
4. - Best they can be – Being the best they can be theirselves; fundraising effectively, financially robust and a great place to work

And they strive to act in line with their four simple principles:

• > Honesty – about what works (and what doesn’t ) and they learn from their mistakes
• > Collaboration – with each other, young people, their members, and the world beyond
• > Improvement – committed to continual improvement
• > Fun – because they think people learn best when enjoying themselves