Experiencing healthy, dependable relationships as a young person is vital to making us resilient in the face of whatever life throws at us.
At Fastn, we want everyone in the UK to benefit from these vital thriving and dependable relationships. We partner with organisations who have the understanding of young people and the power to create lasting change in how young people understand and commit to healthy, dependable relationships.
Fastn’s research shows that young people think that being in lasting and fulfilling relationships is at least as important to their future working life.
Neuroscience confirms just how crucial relationships are for everyone – for our physical and mental health, wellbeing, happiness and outcomes throughout our lives.
Our aim is for all young people to access the right support, so they aspire to and develop the skills and understanding for healthy dependable relationships throughout their lives.
Fastn supports young people, their organisations and decision makers to prioritise relationships. We support them to consciously raise aspiration and skills for relationships throughout young people’s lives.
We do this by working with young people and their organisations to integrate meaningful relationships education into their overall practice.
We also work alongside youth partners. We support them to reflect relationship research in the way they run their organisations, and to ensure this work is youth led and inclusive.
Working through young people’s organisations, we support young relationship activists so they can:
We have learnt that the best way to achieve change is by partnering with young people’s organisations who have the trust and long term relationships with the young people they work with. We help organisations to put healthy, dependable relationships at the heart of everything they do.
We also encourage organisations to start conversations in their communities, with young people under-represented in their communities, and to challenge service providers to take action on relationships.
These partnerships lead to young people driving conversations and shaping services that help them and their peers to achieve healthy, dependable relationships.
We work with organisations and individuals who drive change at regional and national levels. By partnering with national youth organisations, youth media, key influencers and government bodies, we aim to get everyone thinking about the impact that relationships have on young people’s futures.
Our youth programme has supported young people’s organisations to take stock and take action on healthy relationships. Our partners have considered the importance of dependability in young people’s relationships and taken action to support young people in their future relationships.
The organisations we work with recognise that role modelling and allowing young people to experience healthy and dependable relationships is the essence of great and transformative youth work.
By working with young people to put healthy, dependable relationships at the heart of what they do, these organisations raise vital relationship aspiration and skills for the future. They also inspire other young people and organisations.
In the past year alone, Fastn has:
There is so much you can do:
• Start a wider debate on prioritisation of relationships throughout life in your network or group• Take action to better integrate healthy dependable relationships into your work with young people. Take a look at our resources and case studies for inspiration.• Share examples of great practice in the youth sector to encourage others to raise the bar on young people’s relationship aspiration.• Donate to help us reach more young people and youth organisations.
If you’d like to do more, we’d love to hear from you.
In partnership with other organisations we have also produced a range of resources that you can use:
Be inspired by some of the work we’ve done with a wide range of youth organisations. And please get in touch if you’d be interested in finding out more about how we can support your work with young people.
Mental Health Foundation (MHF) is currently sparking conversations with its Young Leaders through Leaders Unlocked. It hopes to encourage young people to engage in the topic of healthy dependable relationships and how to achieve them. Read more
Fastn and Media Trust have worked with young people to co-produce guidance on how the media can help support young people form and sustain healthy and dependable relationships. Read more
We delivered our first #VlogstarHull project in 2020. We partnered with the Media Trust and a range of youth partners to deliver a very special edition of the project where the theme was learning about and forming healthy and reliable relationships. Read more
This toolkit has been developed to train young people to become relationship champions. Fastn provided an experienced youth worker to work with the young people involved to support the development of resources. Read more
Following the success of their involvement in VlogstarHull, the young people at Freedom Road Creative Arts (FRCA) took the initiative to create an episode on the FRCA podcast about healthy, dependable relationships. Since then, with the financial and organisational support of Fastn, they have produced weekly podcasts. Read more
A resource about tackling youth loneliness for anyone working with young people. Read more