The Youth of Today, a consortium of seven leading youth organisations, is highlighted in The Edge Magazine for its work on theory and practice on youth leadership.

Late last year, The Youth of Today consortium published a report entitled Taking the lead which asks: What is youth leadership? Why does it matter? And how can we support and nurture the development of our young leaders? Taking the lead critically investigates youth leadership, bringing together experts' views and best practice from around the world, offering valuable lessons for both practitioners and policymakers.

Some of the key findings of the report include:

• Youth leadership programmes benefit wider society as well as the individual young people- but youth leadership is often seen as 'good for young people' but rarely thought of as 'good for society'.
• The most effective way for young people to gain leadership skills is to have a chance to lead. This means that adults must cede or share power with young people- and this can often prove a difficult balance.
• While there is no single model for best practice, there are certain ingredients that are common to successful leadership programmes.