Children and Young People Social Enterprise Network
Welcome to the Children and Young People Social Enterprise Network, an online information portal for CYP organisations that are starting-up, growing or moving to a social enterprise model.
The Network brings together two Department for Education (DfE) funded programmes, the Overarching Strategic Partnership (OAP) and the Catalyst Consortium.
Business support guidance
Social Enterprise UK has produced a number of guides and tools to help you on your journey to becoming a social enterprise. These include:
- An Enterprising Future: a guide with practical advice on accessing finance, winning public sector contracts, business planning, and evaluating impact.
- Social franchising manual for youth organisations: This how-to guide provides a general introduction to replication, and explains how to decide on a suitable approach for your organisation.
- Free online business diagnostic tool: This free tool covers some of the key business principles and practices you need to put in place to grow your impact and support more children, young people, and their families. It also produces a report on your business for you.
- IT Support: One of our partner organisations, Children England, is offering a free IT helpdesk for voluntary, community and social enterprise sector organisations that work with children, young people and families.
To read more about what's on offer and access these tools and guides, click here.
Events, workshops and training opportunities
Creating extra childcare places for 2 year-olds
There is a gap between the current number of available childcare places and the number that will be needed to meet the Government's offer of 130,000 free childcare places. Social Enterprise UK is currently undertaking a programme of business support and research to support organisations looking to provide Two Year Old Offer places.
Find out more about the programme here.
An Enterprising Future
A series of events designed to support social enterprise start-ups and VCS organisations looking to move to a social enterprise model within children and young people's services.
See here for more detail about this events programme.
Replication in Action
Under Catalyst, Social Enterprise UK are delivering a “Replication in Action” programme, which aims to work with youth organisations on an intensive and practical basis over a period of nine months to develop their business model so that it can be successfully franchised or licensed.
Find out more here.
Youth Organisations Enterprise Leaders Programme
As part of Catalyst, Social Enterprise UK and Real Partners CIC are delivering the “Youth Organisations Enterprise Leaders Programme”, which is designed specifically to explore the essential requirements of leading an effective, innovative and successful youth social enterprise.
There is more information about the programme here.
Keep up-to-date
Our partners across the OAP are all under-taking a number of activities to support children and young people's organisations across the country. You can read the Overarching Strategic partnership news here.
More resources
Below are further resources, downloadable materials and blogs:
- Ólöf Jónsdóttir, our very own Policy and Public Affairs Manager here at Social Enterprise UK, looks at the opportunities and challenges of changing your business model - Toughing it out in voluntary youth services: how a social enterprise approach can help
- June O'Sullivan, CEO of London Early Years Foundation, has her own blog - a great read for an insight into the CYP sector from a social enterprise perspective.
- Further ownloadable support resources, including briefings on the latest policies from central government, are available via Children England.
- The CYP Now website has a useful resources page.
Do you keep a blog about your experiences as a CYP organisation? Are you a social enterprise that works in the CYP sector? If you would like to list your resources page and/or blog here, please send an email to cyp@socialenterprise.org.uk.
Sign up to the Social Enterprise UK newsletter
Receive our electronic newsletter for updates about these programmes, as well as policy briefings and event notifications.
The Children and Young People Social Enterprise Network is being delivered by Social Enterprise UK as part of the Department for Education’s Overarching Strategic Partnership programme, focused on sharing and supporting best practice social enterprise models in the children and young people’s sector. The programme is led by Children England, working with Community Matters, NCVYS, NAVCA, The Race Equality Foundation and Social Enterprise UK.
