I had a long day in London yesterday which started at the Commonwealth Club for the presentation of the Every Organisation Matters whic is the first ever mapping of the children and young people’s voluntary and community sectors and was undertaken by a

team from the University of Hull led by Professor Gary Craig as part of NCVYS and NCVCCO’s Speaking Out project.

There were some interesting headlines and I was particularly struck by:

The children and young people’s voluntary and community sector employs over 160,000 people in England – as many as 1 in 3 of all those employed by voluntary and community organisations – and generates income in excess of £1.5 billion a year.

Children aged 7-13 appear to be poorly provided for, with an emphasis on early years provision and a growing government agenda around services for young people leading to this transitional age group missing out.

Voluntary and community sector organisations need to be doing more to measure the long-term impact of their work.

I could not find out how the faith sector, and particularly Christians, contribute and figure in this, but there is an acknowledgment that it will be significant. I also find it interesting to note that the sector generally is not good at seeing what long term effects we have on the young people we work with. We need to collect more stories and shout a little more about what we are doping maybe!

I’m going to read the full report to see what else was discovered. The full report may be found via NCVYS here.