“I want to get a good degree and get good A-levels and I want to live in a nice big house, get my own business going and get married.” It was after school and the bell had just rang to mark the end of the school day as we continued to talk to pupils in... Find out more
Blog

The Young Foundation welcomes contributions from many sectors and standpoints - views expressed here are not necessarily held by The Young Foundation.
Ideas, as well as people, now move more freely. We have put new models, drawn from other classes and other parts of the world, before the local people, creating new aspirations and new ideas.Michael Young and Peter Willmott.
Family and Kinship in East London, 1957
Who is going to employ me? Reflections on resilience interventions for older unemployed men
“Who is going to employ me?” This was a common question that we heard from a number of men who are currently out of work. These men, aged 45 to 60, had demonstrable experience, had been the breadwinners for their families and in some cases had occupied managerial positions. Unsurprisingly, such uncertainty places a strain... Find out more
Resilience and Older Men: Meet John from Merthyr Tydfil
For the last three months The Young Foundation has been working with Mind to develop a programme targeting the mental health of older men who are out of work. Our goal was to work with them to discover the best ways to help build their resilience and reduce their risk of mental problems. As part of this... Find out more
Resilience and Older Men: Meet Herbert from Hackney
For the last three months The Young Foundation has been working with Mind to develop a programme targeting the mental health of older men who are out of work. Our goal was to work with them to discover the best ways to help build their resilience and reduce their risk of mental problems. As part of this... Find out more
Resilience and Older Men: Meet Imran from Newham
For the last three months The Young Foundation has been working with Mind to develop a programme targeting the mental health of older men who are out of work. Our goal was to work with them to discover the best ways to help build their resilience and reduce their risk of mental problems. As part... Find out more
Neglectful Britain?
How should we look after our ageing population and who should bear the weight of responsibility? Norman Lamb in his interview in The Daily Telegraph and Sarah Dittum in her response in Comment is Free, The Guardian both tackle the view that communities are neglectful of their ageing neighbours but with opposing answers At The... Find out more
The Resilience Illusion
It was late in the evening as we ascended the steep slopes of Les Roquetes. With its winding streets, outdoor escalators and hilltop views, this Barcelona neighbourhood resembled a favela. We arrived at our destination, a little community hall, and were met by several members of the local neighbourhood committee. They were a feisty bunch,... Find out more
In a recession, does wellbeing matter?
This morning the Office for National Statistics published its first findings from the national wellbeing index. The prominence of this index marks a significant shift in the value we place on, and indeed the way we measure, social progress. This is an important first attempt at moving away from understanding social progress in material terms to take a broader account of the attributes that add up to life satisfaction.
Find out moreFrom Russia with Resilience
The Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad, which commemorates the victims and survivors of Leningrad greeted my arrival to the Park Inn Hotel, the venue for the World Health Organisation (WHO) Annual Healthy Cities Conference. The view of the memorial lent a sense of drama and grandeur to proceedings. Inside the hotel, delegates from... Find out more
Aspirations from the street
On a cold winter’s day, late in the afternoon, I am trying to persuade Asad to come along to emotional resilience training, called ‘Face Up’. The training is taking place in the Wealdstone Resource Centre, a community hub hosting a youth centre, medical centre and library. The centre is a few metres from where we... Find out more