JoinedUp | Reach Training & Resources

Partner Organisations

Dixons Academies Trust

Dixons Academies Trust is one of England’s most effective school Trusts. Committed to making a difference where it matters most, Dixons works to improve the future for thousands of children in the parts of the north of England where young lives are adversely affected by social and educational disadvantage.

UK Youth

UK Youth is a leading charity that exists to ensure all young people are equipped to thrive and empowered to contribute at every stage of their lives. Their mission is to work as a nationwide movement to deliver innovative youth services, grow effective practice and campaign to increase support for youth work.

Reach Foundation

The Reach Foundation exists to enable all children to enjoy lives of choice and opportunity. Building on the ‘cradle to career’ model developed at the pioneering Reach Academy and Children’s Hub in Feltham, Reach know that great schools are necessary but not sufficient to change children’s life paths.

Frontline

Frontline's mission is to create social change for children who do not have a safe or stable home, by developing excellent social work practice and leadership. Led by CEO Mary Jackson, they are working towards this through the Frontline and Firstline programmes, and by building a movement of leaders in and outside of social work as part of their Fellowship

JoinedUp is a brand new collective leadership programme for school leaders, youth workers and social workers to learn together, listen to communities together and work together to change the system supporting children and young people.

JoinedUp leaders are deeply committed to the idea that, as leaders, it is our responsibility to create a system that allows all children and young people to enjoy lives of choice and opportunity. This means being safe and well supported, being healthy (physically, mentally and emotionally), achieving well academically and having strong relationships and social networks. For too many children and young people growing up in underserved communities this is not what life is like. The current system is unlikely to help.

A child who does not live in poverty or need the support of a social worker has an 80% chance of passing maths and English at GCSE.

For a child who does, this drops to under 65%. If a child also has special educational needs, this reduces even further to 13%.

A child who is known to social services is three times more likely to be growing up in poverty.

Children living in poverty are four times more likely to develop mental health problems by age 11.

Attainment Gap

Persistently disadvantaged children leave school on average 22 months behind their better off peers.

The challenges some children and young people face are linked. The professionals working to support them are not. JoinedUp aims to change this.

Why JoinedUp?

There is a mismatch between the structure of the system and what is needed for children and young people to thrive.

School leaders, youth workers and social workers are trained in isolation from each other and mostly carry on working in silos throughout their careers. There is little opportunity for them to understand each other’s perspectives or to collaborate to develop new ways of supporting children and young people. This is true within local areas as well as at a national level.

We need to change the system.

Dixons Academies Trust, Frontline, the Reach Foundation and UK Youth all believe that professionals who work with children and young people are best placed to lead this change. So we have come together to create JoinedUp, a collective leadership programme.

Opportunities for all children.

Each year, 20 school leaders, 20 social workers and 20 youth workers will seek to answer the question: ‘how can we collectively create a system that enables all children and young people to enjoy lives of choice and opportunity?’

Together JoinedUp leaders will:

1. Build strong, cross-sector relationships and work in local clusters to understand the concerns, joys, and hopes of children and young people in their area.

2. Visit and be inspired by schools, youth centres and social care settings that are already challenging the status quo.

3. Develop the specific leadership skills required for excellence in their profession and the insights and relationships required to start changing the system in their local area.

4. Design and trial new ways of working together locally to support children and young people in their care.

5. Influence the system by sharing learning with policymakers, funders and senior system leaders.

6. Ultimately, create a new system of support for children and young people.

At the end of the year, we will deliberately sustain the network so they become an ongoing, purpose driven group of leaders learning from and challenging each other to change the system for the better.

What are the benefits for JoinedUp leaders?

As a leader participating in JoinedUp, you will:

Develop as a civic leader and strengthen your leadership in your sector.
Build a deep understanding of the system around children and young people in your community and how you can strengthen it.
Gain the knowledge, skills and mindsets needed to create communities in which all children and young people can thrive and further strengthen your sector specific leadership.
Build strong relationships with other professionals working with children and young people locally and a lasting national network of outward looking and community minded leaders.

What is the programme structure?

Over the course of a 12-month initial programme, JoinedUp leaders will:

Listen to their community: be trained to listen deeply so as to understand the concerns, difficulties, joys and hopes of children, young people and families in your area.
Visit and be inspired by schools/ youth centres/ social care settings that have developed new ways of supporting children and young people together.
Work together locally to develop and implement new approaches to working with children and families that are developed based on learning from the community listening exercise.
Access taught content: both role specific knowledge and cross-sector knowledge (eg. understanding systems, effective listening) needed by leaders wishing to ‘do things differently’.
Have regular group coaching: to share experiences and learning as you implement new ways of working together locally.
Influence the wider system: throughout the programme and afterwards, you will be connected to funders, policymakers and other system leaders to explore and develop ideas to spread practice developed on the programme.

At the end of the initial programme, we will deliberately sustain the JoinedUp network so that it becomes an ongoing, purpose driven group leaders learning from and challenging each other to change the system supporting children and young people.

	Joined Up leaders will access:
In Person-Training Days/residential courses	5 x days of cross sector training and relationship building focused on understanding and acting to change the local system 3 x days of sector specific training focused on domain specific leadership skills
Site Visits	2 x visits to see innovative cross-sector approaches in action 2 x sector to sector visits to learn about other setting (ie. school leader visits local youth centre and social care setting to learn more about how they work) 3 x sector specific visits to see excellence in your own sector (ie. school leaders visit other schools) Funding available to support international learning visits
Virtual Training/coaching sessions	6 x cross sector group coaching sessions to reflect on shared efforts to understand system and lead change locally 6 x sector specific virtual training sessions and access carefully curated pool of sector specific leadership development resources

Costs:

The cost of participating in JoinedUp is £2,500 per leader. This is approximately half the actual cost of running the programme (with the other half being funded philanthropically). We are committed to doing all we can to ensure that there are no barriers to participation, so please do contact us if your budget is especially stretched.

Pilot Programme:

The inaugural cohort of JoinedUp leaders will first meet in January 2022.

Our first cohort will focus on four areas of the country:

Essex
London
Yorkshire
The North East

If you would like to find out more about how you can participate, please email: james.townsend@reachfoundation.org.uk