Upwards foundational leadership programme

Upwards is a foundational leadership programme for young people aged 12-15 (though the programme can be delivered up to age 19). It teaches life skills and leadership skills over a term at high school.

Upwards' purpose is to empower, uplift and equip a million young people to become the hero of their own lives.

We run term-long leadership programmes for high school students, from 12 - 19 years old.

These are structured as a two-day outdoor education programme, which teaches the basic leadership skills, followed by weekly sessions one hour a week for 8 weeks to integrate the core learning and cover practical life skills. This is then supported by an online course to provide low-level followup support, using the framework of a community project.  

We teach in a way which meets the needs of our learners. We use constructivist-based, kinaesthetic learning to work together, draw on shared knowledge, create shared outcomes, and have fun along the way. (If it's not fun, the young people we're looking to reach won't engage with us.) This is particularly important for the Māori and Pacific learners we support in New Zealand but equally applicable to other cultures.

We’re looking to build a global programme where Upwards-certified facilitators work with young people all around the world, adapting the Upwards material as needed to work within each community. Where young people have fun and enjoy the programmes, and say, "This changed my life." Where the facilitators are able to do the work they love, and make a decent living out of it.  Where young people feel huge pride in themselves as a result of our programme.

I want to see those in our communities who are ashamed of who they are, stepping up. Where their confidence grows, academic achievement lifts and their life outcomes improve.

The 100-year vision for Upwards is an organisation that empowers communities to come together and create their own solutions to the big problems facing our world.

Our young people in Aotearoa New Zealand face huge challenges - far too many in mental unwellness, social deprivation or with limited employment prospects.

Here are the statistics:  

• Young people are disproportionately represented in unemployment statistics, with 74,000 young people not in employment, education or training in 2016.  

• In 2016, nearly 300,000 young people 17 or under, or 28% of all young people in NZ, were estimated by the Child Poverty Monitor as ‘in poverty’.

• We have the highest rate of teen suicide in the developed world.

• Pacific peoples and indigeous Māori people face additional systemic barriers to achievement.  

My ToC is that by teaching practical life skills and interpersonal skills in a culturally appropriate way, students will be equipped to make different life choices and thus improve educational outcomes and later life outcomes. (More detail.)

Research:

1. Social and emotional skills impact learning: Social and emotional learning (SEL) is proven by research to raise the achievement of young people academically by 11 to 17 percentage points, and hence improve life outcomes.

2. Students do better when their unique cultural backgrounds are valued: Te Kotahitanga is a New Zealand-based, evidence-backed intervention currently running in 49 schools around Aotearoa NZ

As a social enterprise, our aim is to ensure long-term outcomes for our young people, and sustainability of the company. We deploy to schools and communities by certifying and funding facilitators, who then deliver the programme in their local area.

This means we can run the programme worldwide by certifying facilitators and selling them the course materials. 

For schools which can’t afford the full cost of the programme, we subsidise these with sponsorship and running Upwards corporate leadership programmes which help to cover these costs, as well as reaching and empowering even more people.

Number of Upwards courses run in NZ in a year - Run Upwards in at least 10 towns or cities in New Zealand in 2018

Pre-, post and follow up evaluations built into programme - Tangible positive student outcomes from programme observed six months after course

Pre-, post- and follow up evaluations built into programme (already have these for pilots). - Young people are proven by evaluation to be more resilient as a result of doing the programme.

We're working with disadvantaged young people who may not have access to technology and learn best face to face - so this part of our solution only comes in at the end of the process, to support and maintain the positive behaviour change that has already happened. 

We use a gamified approach on a mobile application (in development) to help our young people practice good habits and learn enterprise skills after the F2F component is finished. It's novel because of the gamified approach, and the content - we're looking to shift behaviour and support very disadvantaged young people. 

We're developing this app using a co-design process with the young people in our target communities, and involving an experienced children and youth psychologist who has experience in creating a game which is clinically proven to treat depression in young people (SPARX). 

This will be built into the cost of the courses, so it's free for our young people.

I have a consulting business which supports me financially with part-time work as I continue to work on this business until it becomes profitable. I fund it from grants and my own savings at present, but I anticipate this will change as I'm currently working on getting larger funding grants ($50k+) and selling the business courses to fund it.  

• Technology access is still a barrier here for our most poor - if we can solve the challenge for places like Northland, New Zealand, we can also solve it for other Pacific nations such as Fiji or Tuvalu. 
• Funding social enterprises is an ongoing challenge in NZ as we don't fit in a box - I'm working on inventing a new business model which allows the company to be self-sustaining long-term rather than rely solely on funding as a not for profit. 

http://upwards.co.nz

I'm trying to create a new business model - so I want to work with the brightest people in social enterprise who have experience of other models and can help me change or challenge my thinking by learning from others directly. I know that I don't know a lot, and we're all learning.

I also expect that I would be able to help others. I'm a connector, I see links between people and programmes, and I have an interest in complex systems thinking/strategy. So I would expect to bring those skills to bear to help others in the programme.  

Outward Bound NZ. 

Any similar programme.