Priority 1-54 Community Interest Company

1.1 Priority 1-54 (Community Interest Company) works alongside partners to promote the rights and wellbeing of children and young people, in the places they live, learn and play. 1.2 This mission is supported by three clear aims: • Inform: We help children and young people understand the issues that affect their lives, or that they care deeply about. • Inspire: We use creative, engaging and inclusive approaches that help young people feel able to take part. • Empower: We support young people to speak up, influence decisions, and act as change-makers in their communities. 1.3 The financial year ending 31 March 2025 continued to be a strong period of delivery and development for Priority 1-54. Our work remained focused on supporting young people’s mental health and emotional wellbeing, strengthening youth participation, and creating safe spaces to explore sensitive issues that are often hard to talk about elsewhere. 1.4 The sections below summarise key projects delivered or progressed during the year, alongside newer areas of work where funding and partnerships were secured. (Some projects completed after 31 March 2025 are included here for completeness, where the work was developed and progressed within the reporting period.) 1.5 Suicide Prevention Programme (ACT: Acknowledge, Care, Talk) - Building on consultation with young people about attitudes to learning on self-harm and suicide, we continued developing and delivering our ACT suicide prevention approach. Additional NHS funding enabled us to co-produce a short film with young people to strengthen the programme’s reach and impact. The film was completed in October 2025. 1.6 I’m Speaking (VAWG and community safety) - ‘I’m Speaking’ supported young women to make their voices heard on violence against women and girls and wider community safety issues. The project created opportunities for young women to shape what “safe space” support should look like locally, and to co-produce practical guidance and youth programme recommendations focused on healthy relationships, respect and consent. The project completed in December 2025, and we are seeking additional funding to continue this work. 1.7 Child poverty (4in10, building on Potential Not Poverty) - During the year, we built on our previous child poverty programme and the national work commissioned by Save the Children, which gathered the views of young people growing up in poverty and fed into policy recommendations and the Child Poverty Taskforce. This strand is now funded by the London-based organisation 4in10 and will continue through to March 2026, ensuring young people’s lived experience continues to inform public debate and system change. 1.8 Project 13–31 (concluding January 2026) - Project 13–31 uses evidence-based, inclusive urban art techniques to amplify the voices of seldom-heard young people and embed creative youth voice structures within grassroots youth organisations. The project is due to conclude in January 2026. 1.9 Theatre-in-Education work (Sussex University partnership) - We continued our Theatre-in-Education partnership work with university colleagues, using creative participatory methods to ensure young people shape both the content and how impact is measured. This includes co-producing learning content (including drama/script development) and supporting the development of an evaluation framework. 1.10 Demonstrating impact and accountability - Across our projects, we embed proportionate monitoring and evaluation, and use creative feedback approaches (including film and other multimedia) so young people can share experiences in ways that feel comfortable and authentic. We also produce clear progress and end-of-project reports for stakeholders, including young people, partners and funders. 1.11 Young people’s feedback – The quotes below are from young people who took part in Priority 1-54 projects during the year. They describe what it felt like to be involved, including feeling respected, listened to and treated as an equal. They also show why our approach matters: creating a space where young people can talk honestly about difficult issues (including suicide and drugs), express themselves in different ways (conversation, written ideas, creative methods like graffiti), and see their input turn into real action. We’ve included these voices to keep this report grounded in young people’s lived experience, in their own words. ‘I felt honoured and respected being part of the group. It felt that my struggles were acknowledged and could make a difference.’ ‘Being part of the group has opened my eyes more than I thought it would. The people, the subjects we covered, and the activities all amazed me. I feel like people understand me and that I'm making a difference here. Groups like these are so important to young people if they want to speak up and make a difference.’ ‘For me being part of this group is about actions speaking louder than words and taking an active role in speaking up for our rights.’ ‘I liked the range of ways to express our viewpoints like speaking in a group, writing down ideas and the graffiti.’ ‘It was amazing to see our campaigns come together, but in ways I just didn’t expect.’ ‘I think people are afraid to speak up about suicide due to shame and a lack of trust, but here you could talk openly without being judged. It felt like a space where I could share things I wouldn't normally and I didn’t have to worry about being judged.’ ‘I liked being able to talk and be heard, and it was good seeing how many other people think the same as me. It was nice to realise I’m not the only one feeling this way, and hearing others share their experiences made me feel less alone.’ ‘Being involved in the group has been really educational and it’s widened my perspective over the whole topic of drugs.’ ‘It’s not the only reason I liked being part of the group, but the food and gift cards made it feel like you actually cared about us and our opinions.’ ‘In the group the way we did things made us feel more like equal, and you know what you say will make a difference.’