The programme entails recruiting almost 11,000 young people in Blackpool and involving them at every level including training, commissioning, and promotion, to provide best practice resilience services and support.
The programme is based on research and practice development at the university’s Centre of Resilience for Social Justice and Boingboing, a social enterprise working closely with the Centre.
Diane Booth, Director of Blackpool Council’s Children’s Services, said: “Based on the work of Professor Angie Hart and her colleagues at the Ƶ, the approach is underpinned by robust research, which validates the work nationally and internationally.”
Writing this month in The MJ, the online management journal for local authority business, Diane credited young people for starting the “Resilience Revolution” and bringing in £11m funding via the National Lottery Community Fund’s HeadStart programme.
With involvement from children and their families the new approach involves “co-production” at every stage using the mantra ‘nothing about us, without us’.
Blackpool had more than ten thousand 10-16 year-olds needing opportunities to build their resilience and to achieve a brighter future – and they are now helping the town “get it right”, something Diane said is being embedded across the whole of Blackpool Council.