Youth charity chief reveals expansion plans

Thomas Lawson, chief executive of Leap Confronting Conflict, wants the conflict resolution charity, which is currently funded by a range of trustees, private sector partners and voluntary organisations, to have an annual turnover of £2m by 2016.

He unveiled his plans during the launch of the charity’s 2014-16 strategic plan in London on Thursday.

He said: “Leap doesn’t want to be a big organisation, we think that the biggest we should be is about £3m turnover.

“At that size we will be training enough people to have a significant impact and to be able to demonstrate the value of our models.

“But we’re not turning over £3m, we’re turning over £1m so we’ve set ourselves what we have calculated to be a realistic target of £2m of sustainable, repeatable income that is funding our high-impact work.”

The strategy also sets out plans for the creation of an evidence base of the impact of the charity’s work with young people aged 11 to 25 that could be used to shape policy and practice within the youth sector.

Lawson believes it is vital that the charity works with professionals such as teachers, police and prison officers to support vulnerable young people encountering conflict.

He said: “Unless we know how to manage conflict we won’t be successful people, we won’t have successful relationships and we won’t be the best people we could be at work.

“Conflict is particularly inevitable as young people hit adolescence – their relationships change and group dynamics become much more important – so supporting young people to manage those relationships with each other is absolutely crucial if they are going to learn how to be the fantastic adults we know they can be.”