Taking up space
As we reach the end of our financial year (at the end of June) and head towards the end of the academic year it’s time to pause and reflect on the journey. The Grit year has been full of change, new team members, new trainers and some new areas of work that you can read about below. We’re proud of our ability to move and change with the times, to listen, learn and improve how we can support young people and those that work with them in different and tailored ways.
This has required our creativity, our resilience and our willingness to keep seeing what else is possible. These seem like important qualities in a world where the pace of change is unprecedented and people are continuously dealing with uncertainty. As a new Grit year begins, it is less about fixed plans and goals, and more about embodying the openness, vulnerability and courage to do things differently that we ask for from our participants.
It seems very fitting that this newsletter begins with the journeys of our Trustees who embody these qualities themselves and demonstrate them in their stories. I hope you are all able to use your summer break (if you have one) to reflect on the journey of the year and the positive qualities you have drawn on to navigate it.
All the best
Ellie
Incredible Journeys
Those of you who follow Grit’s YouTube channel may have noticed that we have been posting films of our trustees talking about their Grit journeys and explaining why it is that they support us. Take a look at the clip of Annete who describes her own extraordinary story: from sofa-surfing to graduating from Nottingham Trent University and, now five years later, being at the point of qualifying as a solicitor.
It’s an incredible journey.
And, in case you’ve missed them, here’s David Woolley, Director of the Centre for Student and Community Engagement at Nottingham Trent University, and Neil Basu former Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service and Crime Agents podcaster talking about their Grit journeys.
Taking Up Space
We’ve been doing a lot of work with local authority staff teams in the first few months of this year - Nottingham City Council, the Nottinghamshire Virtual School (the teams that oversee the educational journeys of children in care), the London Boroughs of Hounslow and Newham, Suffolk County Council and Sunderland City Council’s Children’s Services Team.
Kirandip took part in the Nottingham City Council programme. Her story gives a real flavour of the impact we have with professionals working with young people.
She describes how Grit empowered her as a Woman of Colour, how it made her proud of the experience, resilience and perspective she brings to the table as a leader, how she no longer feels the need to shrink herself, over-explain or seek permission to take up space as a leader.
Read more about the difference we make with local authority teams on the case studies page of our website.
Being Grit
Long-time Grit Impact and Evaluation Coordinator, Sarah, has recently become one of our Programme Managers. Here she talks about what it’s like to be on the Grit team.
“Something I love most about working on the team at Grit, is the fact that you see and feel ‘the Grit experience’ in all aspects of the organisation. From the workshops to team meetings to client and trainer meetings… we stand to be who we say we are being.
At Grit, we always start from ‘who am I being’ before we get to the doing; maintaining positive working relationships and working effectively in partnership with clients is our priority.
As a team, we embarked on an activity to explore what ‘Being Grit’ meant to us all, both individually and collectively - to set out how and where you see our promises and commitments to ‘Being Grit’ when working with us.
The team here really do share a strong value in exploring like this together and being willing to be vulnerable, just as our participants do in the workshops. We practice what we preach!”
In conference
We’re looking forward to speaking at a couple of conferences at the end of June. We’ll be at the Institute of Social Equity conference at London Metropolitan University talking about our work with Black students and Students of Colour.
And at the Forum for Access and Continuing Education (FACE) conference at Anglia Ruskin Peterborough you can catch us sharing some of the findings from our programme at Southampton Solent University.
See you there!