June 2021 saw the return of Haringey’s Youth Summit, bringing Haringey’s youth face to face with Members of Parliament, Borough-based institutions and key stakeholders and organisations working together to make life better for them.

By Omar Alleyne-Lawler, Communications Manager

As one of the community stakeholders present at the summit, Hope in Tottenham will be implementing several measures to meet the needs of our youth over the next 18 months.

June’s Youth Summit raised several serious concerns for Tottenham’s youth.

Focused on serious youth violence, Mental Health provision, Racial Injustice and the Digital Divide, Hope in Tottenham is compelled to respond. This range of challenges is a welcome test to the charity, whose four community programmes have been reorganised to address the relevant issues and challenges involved.

Starting with developments in our Youth and Mentoring programmes, Hope in Tottenham will be extending its commitment to creating employment opportunities. Currently working alongside Sixth Forms and Colleges, HiT will be opening up more Work Experience, Internship and Placement opportunities for students looking for professional experience and/or developing their professional portfolios. Currently, these programmes are being pioneered with CONEL’s Construction and Marketing students; Lipton Rodgers LLP and Facebook UK already on board. In the coming 18 months, this will expand into more industries as companies and education centres join.

Internally, Hope in Tottenham will remain committed to hiring from within the Borough. Opening two managerial positions to better support the Youth and Engagement teams, HiT is also doubling the current number of days the youth team is available.

This means our Police Engagement Programme can develop further. One takeaway from the Summit is that our current strategy of ‘humanising perspectives’ is working. Therefore, HiT will remain committed to this strategy, expanding where our resources are applied and developing current relationships.

Counselling will remain a core service, reacting to concerns around mental health provision. Though current students accessing the service are being prepared for after-school support, Hope in Tottenham is committing to supporting youth through to the age of 24. As such, plans will be drafted to meet demand alongside current plans which have seen the Counselling Programme expand to an additional three schools.

Whilst anti-racist principles have always been a core principle within Hope in Tottenham, our Communications Team will showcase these values more consistently on external channels. In doing so, HiT wants to reassure young people in Haringey that they are not alone in wanting racial violence and injustice to end.

This campaign will also run alongside a new initiative that will promote digital experts from the local area. This effort aims to address the educational imbalance currently existing within the digital divide. In doing so, Hope in Tottenham wants to better nurture the future of the Borough, wisely supporting digital leaders of the future to fully reach their potential.

As Hope in Tottenham sets these plans into motion this month, we are thankful to the students who reached out to us through the Youth Summit. While this direction promises new challenges for us, we are confident that HiT will lead by example.