ABOUT @CEFLyncx

Community Education Foundation & Lyncx (CEF Lyncx), is a Brixton based community/equity-led Charity that provides diverse range of after-school educational and capacity building services for the benefit of children/young-people in Lambeth. We achieve these objectives through providing safe space where young-people come to engage in diverse range of structured cross-curriculum programmes co-produced with our community.

Set up in 2011, Registered Company in 2012 and gained Charity status in 2016, the Charity is rooted in the Lambeth youth community and has over-time, not only developed excellent knowledge/understanding of the needs of the local-community but also a track-record of successful delivery of outcomes that adds to our Local Authority's objectives and priority for its youth community.

Our experience working with our local community has been developed over more than a decade and over this period, we have not only build on our expertise knowledge/understanding of the community but have developed a relationship built on trust and mutual recognition of our 'community/equity-led' co-production approach that we use to develop and run interventions that are not only fit for the Lambeth youth community's needs but achieving consistent successful outcomes for all stakeholders of our Charity.

Current interventions co-produce by CEF Lyncx for the benefit of children, young people and families include;

• VS3P (virtual-study-support-schooling-project) run online, supporting 160 primary and secondary school age children with extra learning to help them to improve literacy, numeracy and science attainment.

• SHARP (school holidays active and recreational programme) runs 6-weekly supporting on average, 150 YP during every school holidays is a diversionary intervention providing safe space where young people come to become physically active, connected, develop skills while diverting them away from the risks of isolation/loneliness and potential coaxing into crime/anti-social activities

• Our Creative-StEP (Creative Saturdays, the Extra Project) initiative is youth-led social action initiative developed by young people for young people and the support network around them. It is run by youth people with professionals/experienced adults providing support/nurturing and bringing together young-people to engage/participate in positive conversation on issues that impacts on youth culture and communicating the key messages (social-action) using different creative arts mediums i.e. Music, Dance, Performing Arts.

• Youth Action and Consultative Programmes helping working with partner social housing estates and their young people to develop and improve youth representation/voice beyond partner housing estate level representing themselves and the youth community around them. This initiative aims to empower the youth community by giving them a platform to develop the skills they need to advocate for their interests and drive positive change.

• SENDsational is a targeted/inclusive and life-long skills development interventions for young people with special education needs and disabilities (SEND), providing opportunity for this cohort of young people to engage in tailored and diverse range of inclusive activities aimed to help them to develop key and necessary skills for personal growth in independence.

• Y-Volunteering (Youth-Volunteering-Scheme) attracts over 50 young people year, encouraging/nurturing them develop confidence and employability skills and career/further-education ambition by providing pathways that leads them to achieve improved economic independence while they focus on education.

These interventions together have over the decade of the Charity's existence, has deliver diverse range of social value outcomes for over 20,000 unique young people in Lambeth helping them to achieve improved :

• wellbeing (physical and emotional)

• feeling of safety and belonging

• awareness of the environment

• academic attainment levels

• connection to and representation of local communities

• employability skills and employment outcomes

• fulfilment of contributing meaningfully in the community

We recognise that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we live and the Cost of Living crisis is ongoing. We therefore, have taken time out to look at ways that we could work collaboratively with our community, partners and investors of social interest (Funders) to ensure that children, young people and their families who access our services are as much as possible, better prepared to adapt to the changing environment now and beyond.

Our response is developed with the expectation that these crisis has and is certainly having adverse impact on many in our community on one hand and on the other, we see that the crisis has some positive national level outcomes, however; the challenging social outcomes we see at grassroots level triggers our Charity's efforts to, for example, co-produce services that can enable children, young people and their families to adapt to manage the impact of such events are having on without compromising the social value outcomes that our Charity's work aim to achieve.

The question for us has been how we create a balance between these critical positions. Our immediate response is informed by our co-production efforts with our community of children, young people and families, Residents/Tenants Management Organisation Partners in Lambeth and the many network conversations is enabling our Charity, Community Education Foundation & Lyncx (CEF Lyncx) to develop our services offers, ensuring that they are fit for purpose i.e. an offer that provides awareness, curriculum learning support and capacity building capable of supporting the needs of our community of children, young people and their families; now and beyond these crisis.