Our response to the National Youth Strategy
Shaped by 14,000 young people, including our Young Champions, the strategy underscores how trusted relationships and community support can prevent isolation and improve wellbeing.
We welcome Youth Matters: Your National Youth Strategy released on Wednesday, 10 December 2025.
This is the first national youth strategy released in England in 15 years. It is designed to give all young people the support, opportunities, and voice they deserve.
The strategy focuses on three key areas:
People who care - ensuring more young people have trusted adults and positive friendships
Places to go and things to do - investing in youth clubs, enrichment activities, safe spaces, and work opportunities
Seen and heard - putting young people at the centre of decisions that affect their lives.
Two aims of the strategy, which runs to 2035, are that the government will have halved the gap in access to enriching activities and connected half a million more young people with trusted adults.
Bez Martin, Head of Participation at Anna Freud, said in response:
“It is encouraging to see a strategy co-produced with more than 14,000 young people, including some of our own Young Champions. Young people have been clear about the challenges they face, from living in an increasingly isolated and digital world, to poverty and global instability. This strategy takes important steps toward addressing those concerns through a stronger focus on prevention and early intervention.
“We are especially pleased to see a strong emphasis on relationships, including a focus on trusted adults, who bring safety, guidance and connection. If we want young people to thrive, we must build the conditions in which healthy relationships can form. A strategy that strengthens families, invests in communities and schools as inclusive, supportive environments, and ensures every young person has someone to turn to, is a strategy genuinely geared towards prevention.
“We also welcome strong commitment to co-production within the strategy. This aligns with our belief that young people must shape the support they receive, particularly when designing preventative and early-intervention services. With the right implementation, centring youth voice could help create a more stable foundation for prevention, early support and mental health for the decade ahead.
“However, ambition alone is not enough. Impact will depend on sustained funding, workforce capacity and ensuring that youth workers and trusted adults receive the training needed to engage confidently with young people’s mental health needs. It will also require ongoing engagement with young people, empowering them to shape services and hold government to account, as well as strong cross-department collaboration to ensure that prevention, early intervention, and wellbeing are embedded across services. Measuring the quality of relationships, connection and wellbeing outcomes will be essential to track real impact.
“At Anna Freud, our work is strengthened by adopting the Lundy model of participation, a rights-based approach to ensure we can hear, listen to and act upon the voices of those we work with. We look forward to sharing our expertise and helping services and policymakers improve the systems that shape young lives, to ensure this strategy delivers on its promises.”
Find out more about our Young Champions and our participation strategy.