The lowdown has been awarded a life-changing Youth Investment Fund grant to transform its services for young people in Northamptonshire.

The lowdown has been awarded a transformational Youth Investment Fund grant to extend and refurbish its Kingswell Street Building and expand its youth service offer to young people across Northamptonshire. It is very welcome news for young people supported by the lowdown who will benefit from the generous funding and means that they will have the capacity to support approx 3,000 young people.

Most of the funding is granted for capital expenditure and will enable them to almost double their capacity. The rest is awarded to provide new youth services for 11-18 year olds to support young people on their journey towards positive emotional health and wellbeing.

The lowdown is one of 43 youth services in England to benefit from the first wave of Youth Investment Fund grants, announced by the funder, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the charity Social Investment Business, who is delivering the grant programme in partnership with Key Fund, National Youth Agency and Resonance.

The Youth Investment Fund is part of the Government’s National Youth Guarantee to transform and level up opportunities for young people in England. The Youth Investment Fund, of over £300 million, aims to build, renovate, or extend youth service facilities, providing a minimum of 45,000 additional positive activities for young people between 11 and 18 - in the parts of the country where new spaces and new opportunities are most needed.

The 43 Youth Investment Fund grants announced today, worth over £90 million, are the first to benefit from this new funding. Over the next two years the funding pot will be rolled out to a total of 300 youth services across England. It will enable youth services like the lowdown to transform health, wellbeing, skills, and opportunities for young people. It is a ground-breaking opportunity to prioritise the needs of young people and deliver the life-changing services they need, creating a more equal society for future generations.

The Youth Investment Fund grant of £1,292,064.00 over 2 years will transform the lowdown services for young people. The lowdown is keen to get the building works started as soon as possible as they have already run out of space. They have seen, and are still seeing, a 20% year on year increase in demand for their services since 2020.

The new services which are planned to be rolled out from Spring 2023 will include a new Youth Advisory Board which will feed into the new service offers of youth activities and wellbeing groups to support and empower young people to make positive changes in a safe, friendly, and non-judgmental environment.

The funding will also go towards improving accessibility to the services offered by the lowdown and the infrastructure of the organisation to cope with its expansion.

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said: “I want every young person to have the opportunity to access the kinds of life-changing activities which expand their horizons and allow them to develop vital life skills.

“The National Youth Guarantee will provide these opportunities and support young people with access to regular club activities, adventures away from home and volunteering opportunities.

“We are supporting this today with an investment to create or renovate spaces for youth clubs and activities to support opportunities for thousands of young people across the country who would otherwise miss out.”

Nick Temple, CEO for Social Investment Business, said: “Every young person deserves access to high quality activities and facilities, providing the opportunities to help them thrive. The Youth Investment Fund is helping make that vision a reality, supporting organisations and projects in the areas of England that need it most.”  

“It’s been amazing to see the wide range of projects applying to the Fund, and especially how young people have played a meaningful role in shaping those plans. There is a real appetite to develop inclusive, accessible and sustainable facilities that will be there for future generations – and that is reflected in the first set of grants announced today.” 

“We are hugely excited as work gets underway in places across the country – work that will help transform opportunities for thousands of young people.” 

Leigh Middleton, Chief Executive, National Youth Agency, said: “We are delighted to see these initial projects get off the ground and excited about the many and varied projects we are now supporting through the application process.

"The involvement of our Young Assessors in this process is vital to ensure that bids have young people at their core and that the places and activities which will be delivered are inclusive to all. Over the next three years the Youth Investment Fund will support our ambitions to enable more young people to benefit from the life changing impact of youth work, including gaining essential life skills, preparing for employment and being empowered to have a voice in their communities and society.”

Welcoming the Youth Investment Fund grant, Sharon Womersley, CEO of the lowdown, said: “We are delighted to be awarded the funding to increase our capacity and service offer for young people in Northamptonshire as demand for our services has quadrupled over the last four years. Our Kingswell Street location is a discreet, trusted, safe, non-judgemental space and has been since we opened in 1989, hence the need to further develop this site.

This is the second phase of our project - in December 2022 we opened our new “Lowdown Lounge” to provide a larger space to develop our youth services, including our Wellbeing Café.Our new Youth Advisory Board will help us scope and develop our new services to ensure they meet the needs of the young people who will use them.”Young person’s quote: “The lowdown is a wonderful place to go for any issues worrying young people. The lowdown is very good at what it aims to do, supporting young people with their mental health. Every day they positively impact a young person's life.

The Youth Investment Fund is actively welcoming expressions of interest for youth service projects for new/renewed facilities that will deliver positive outcomes for young people in selected eligible areas in England.  Eligible youth service projects can apply now, with applications open until the final grant committee in March 2024. www.youthinvestmentfund.org.uk