The new Young Start: shaped by children and young people

Our starting point

Young Start ignites the power of Scotland’s children and young people to transform their futures and communities. Since launching in 2012, almost £75 million has been awarded to over 1,200 incredible projects led by and for young people aged 8 to 24.

In 2023, we launched a 2-year research project to refresh the programme, ensuring that children and young people’s voices were at the centre of every change. Our goal was to make sure they would be active partners in the refresh, not just those who get funding. The refreshed programme is now live, and it reflects everything they told us they want, need, and value.

How children and young people shaped Young Start

We made sure that children and young people’s experiences and insights guided the refreshed programme. Here are some of the ways we involved them.

Setting the foundations

From the outset, we involved nearly 50 children and young people in defining what success would look like. This helped shape the project’s goals and priorities from day one.

Meaningful involvement

We spoke with 3 groups of children and young people and made a film together about what meaningful involvement means to them. The 3 groups:

• helped write the questions
• interviewed each other
• co-directed the film
• had the final say on the edits

We used the film to support a broader approach to how children and young people might get involved in projects, embedded in the refreshed programme.

Developing the outcomes

To inform our new outcomes – what we fund – we reviewed 21 external reports published between 2020 and 2024 that directly engaged over 43,000 children and young people on what matters most to them. When choosing what reports to analyse, we were particularly mindful of hearing voices from different communities, ages, and lived experiences, to ensure the programme works for everyone.

Co-designing the programme

The heart of the refresh was a co-design project with people aged 14 to 21 from diverse backgrounds and life experiences. Across several sessions we focussed on co-designing new approaches to the Young Start programme – the ‘how’ we fund. We also heard suggestions on how children and young people might become more actively involved in the application process as well as learning what they weren’t interested in.

A new funding offer – what’s changed

The result is a refreshed funding offer with new outcomes, clearer language and a new development fund. This means there are now 2 ways to apply for Young Start funding.

Young Start Main Grants

This is for grants of £20,001 to £150,000 for up to 3 years. Young Start Main Grants has 4 new outcomes.

Projects must help children and young people:

• learn more about themselves or other people
• take action on issues that matter to them
• build positive relationships that improve their wellbeing
• learn skills that help them feel more confident for the future

Young Start Small Grants

This is for grants of £300 to £20,000 for up to 1 year. Young Start now has a new development programme called Young Start Small Grants. This is for organisations who are not yet meaningfully involving children and young people in their work, but who would like to. Our research told us we should be supporting projects who are not yet doing this work. By improving the ability of organisations to do this, we hope to improve the quantity and quality of this work, and bring lasting change across Scotland’s third sector.

Clear and accessible language

Children and young people told us that funding language is often complicated and difficult to follow. So, they helped us simplify the language we use in the programme materials and application questions.

The importance of choice

Children and young people told us that they:

• value having a choice in when, how and if they are involved
• like having lots of ways to get involved in their projects because one size does not fit all
• would prefer to get involved in the funding application itself, rather than in our decision-making process

We’ve made sure our approach reflects these both in the way we fund, and in the projects we want to support.

Thank you!

We want to thank all the children and young people who have spent time with us over the last 2 years. Every conversation, workshop and co-design session helped shape the new programme. We could not have done it without you.

Find out more

Young Start funding comes from dormant assets that no one has accessed for several years. We deliver the programme for the Scottish Government.

If you would like to apply for Young Start funding, you can find out more about the new offer and how to apply on the Young Start Main Grants page or the Young Start Small Grants page.