Working collaboratively across the North East of England with over 80 partners, we empower young people most in need to take on our youth-led development programme, the KEY+ Challenge. It began life when an ambitious group of young people, detached youth workers and academics collaborated to develop an evidence-based programme to engage, support and empower young people.

The KEY+ Challenge has evolved over time, but the core principles remain. Our proven, youth-led skills development programme brings young people together in small groups and, with the support of a KEY+ Facilitator (trained deliverer), they're set the challenge to:

• Think of a project or activity
• Plan what is needed for that project, including a budget
• Pitch their project to a panel of volunteers
• Do their project if given the go ahead by the panel
• Review and reflect on their project, learning, and development.

Young people complete this process up to three times, each time planning more progressively challenging projects with greater personal development. Delivering their first KEY+ project is a great achievement for young people, delivering their second stretches them further and enhances their skills and at Stage 3, they explore enterprise or social action with their project, providing a way to take action and contribute to their communities.