A year; it is a long time in anyone’s life let alone a young person’s. I remember being 18 for a hell of a lot longer than I was 36; as Einstein said, time is relative. During our formative years, 365 days feel like anything can happen, first experiences are had and shared, the world should open, horizons broaden, everything feels important and life-changing. For many of our young people, these formative times and experiences are usually coupled with immensely challenging situations where homelessness, trauma, grief and loneliness can run parallel with the usual experiences of being young.

I often get asked “where do you see The Running Charity in ten years’ time?”, the question tends to be under the context of funding, strategy, expansion, supporters – the business side of the charity – and of course it is my responsibility to have an answer for these questions, but, if I am honest, I want young people that we work with now to be able to look back on these formative years with as much fondness as possible. That just because they had to endure challenging experiences that were forced upon them, that they did not miss out on care, fun, community, culture, and the usual experiences that come with being a young person.

Covid-19 did throw the cat among the pigeons but in all sincerity, I could not be prouder of what our young people and the team have achieved over the past year. True, it has not been easy; our delivery model was tested and nearly a third of anticipated income dried up, but we made a decision based upon our values and shared experiences with young people.

“Family” is a word that often gets used by our members when describing the bond between our coaches and our wider groups. Our coaches often work with young people through their crisis but this was the first time we shared a crisis, and I was determined that we would not furlough, that we would provide meaningful support, that we would step up not down, that we would focus on our members, not our cash flow and that we would face this shared crisis together.

From an organisational point of view, the charity was facing a situation, not unlike one it had faced before when it had seen a significant agreed income end abruptly through no fault of its own, so we felt prepared to take on that challenge. And as I said, our incredible team of coaches face crisis situations most weeks, just this time we had to face them with masks on. Practical stuff was the most pressing thing on our agenda before the first lockdown: can young people self-isolate even if they wanted to? Could they get two weeks of food in if they needed to self-isolate? If they were working would they get paid if they needed to isolate? Would their accommodation provider house them if they could not pay rent? These were the questions that needed to be answered and a plan of support put in place.

Our supporters raised over £1100 to help with food parcels for those with no recourse to public funds or were not able to cover costs. We also got support from food and catering companies to maximise this support.

Then came the adaptions to the delivery model. A large element of our work involves our group sessions, the network of peer support, and the social interactions we have. How could we replicate that? The level of support needs our members tend to have meant that we had some leeway around the general public guidelines, however, we felt that initially suspending group work was the correct step. We didn’t want young people to feel that they needed to go on public transport to receive a service, so our coaches increased our level of 1:1 coaching or provided bubble sessions for groups that cohabited, plus we also provided a great online experience as well, including daily fitness challenges, daily phone calls, creative workshops, mindfulness sessions, virtual runs, group chat sessions, access to counselling and enough group fitness classes that even Joe Wicks would have trouble keeping up! By the end of 2020, we had operated over 345 days of the year, providing over 1400 sessions and over 5500 additional support hours.

As ever, our aim was to not let our young people down, to ensure that we were there for them. Our impact evaluations showed that of the 103 members we provided ongoing support to 88% improved their wellbeing and 89% improved their resilience, they still got fitter, they remained housed, and of those who started the year unemployed 89% were employed by the turn of the year. What I am most proud of was the feedback our coaches received from the young people: 100% said they felt they could contact us in a crisis and 100% said that they felt supported, important, and cared for during the lockdowns… that is important!

Moving forward we must be real with the challenges, though. Over the past year, when we saw drops in people’s mental health, they were far more acute and many of our coaches are dealing with even more complex support needs. We are all aware that young people were not at the greatest risk from the symptoms and effects of covid-19, but they will almost certainly face the greatest social and economic impact. During the past year, two-thirds of all job losses have been shouldered by young people; it’s little surprise that 67% said they were anxious about their prospects coming out of the pandemic and 73% said they will require our services even more.

Whatever happens over the next year, I know The Running Charity’s team of coaches, volunteers and supporters will all be doing what we can to ensure that our young people are supported and cared for.