It Starts With Listening: Why Trusted Adults Are the Key to Changing Young Lives Across the UK
Posted on:
How a national conversation, decades of system failure, and one simple question sparked a movement to ensure every young person has someone who listens.
The recent Milburn Report has reignited a national conversation about opportunity, social mobility, and the barriers preventing too many young people from reaching their potential.
For those of us working alongside young people every day, the findings are not surprising.
The report confirms what young people, parents, teachers, youth workers, community leaders, and frontline organisations have been saying for years.
Too many young people are being left behind.
Not because they lack talent.
Not because they lack ambition.
Not because they do not care about their future.
But because too many have grown up in systems that stopped listening to them.
At Genuine Futures, we believe that if we truly and genuinely want change, we need to start with something much simpler than a programme, policy, strategy, or funding application.
We need to start by listening.
A National Conversation That Sparked a Movement
The idea for It Starts With Listening emerged during discussions as part of the National Lottery Community Learning Panel, a select group of organisations from across the UK brought together to share learning, lived experience, and community insight.
Genuine Futures is proud to be one of a small number of organisations chosen to participate in this national programme.
The panel created a space where people from different backgrounds, sectors, and communities could come together and ask difficult questions about the future of our young people.
During one discussion, participants were asked a simple but powerful question:
“How do we help people become better trusted adults?”
For Sam Smith, Founder & Co-Director of Genuine Futures, that question struck a deeply personal chord.
It wasn’t simply a discussion about youth work.
It was a reflection on a lifetime of lived experience.
By the end of that conversation, it was clear that something bigger was emerging.
Not another project.
Not another service.
Not another short-term initiative.
A movement.
A movement focused on listening.
A movement focused on relationships.
A movement focused on trusted adults.
A movement focused on ensuring young people are heard before they reach crisis point.
Decades of System Failure
For Sam, this conversation was deeply personal.
At the age of thirteen, he entered the care system.
Over the following years, he experienced secure units, homelessness, exclusion, and a cycle that eventually led him in and out of prison for over a decade.
Looking back, he often reflects on a difficult reality.
His story is not unique.
It is one of thousands.
For decades, we have watched children and young people fall through the gaps of the very systems designed to safeguard, protect, educate, and support them.
The warning signs are often there.
The concerns are raised.
The referrals are made.
The meetings take place.
Yet too many young people still find themselves feeling abandoned, unheard, and invisible.
We have created systems that are often better at managing crisis than preventing it.
Systems that measure outcomes but sometimes miss the individual.
Systems that can become overwhelmed by process and paperwork while young people wait to be heard.
As Sam reflects:
“I wasn’t failed because nobody knew I was struggling. I was failed because too many people knew and nobody truly listened.”
Sam Smith, Founder & Co-Director, Genuine Futures
The reality is that many young people today continue to experience the same challenges.
School exclusions.
Poor mental health.
Family breakdown.
Homelessness.
Youth violence.
Criminal exploitation.
Disengagement from education and employment.
These issues do not appear overnight.
They are often the result of years of unmet need, missed opportunities, broken trust, and systems that failed to intervene early enough.
The tragedy is that many of these outcomes are preventable.
Not through bigger systems.
Not through more paperwork.
But through earlier relationships.
Earlier conversations.
Earlier intervention.
And adults who are prepared to listen before a young person reaches crisis point.
At Genuine Futures, we believe that safeguarding is not simply about responding when something goes wrong.
It is about creating environments where young people feel seen, valued, heard, and supported long before things go wrong.
Because every young person deserves more than a service.
They deserve someone who genuinely cares.
Someone who believes in them.
Someone who stays.
The Milburn Report Confirms What Young People Have Been Saying for Years
The Milburn Report highlights the growing barriers facing young people across the UK.
It discusses social mobility, education, employment, and opportunity.
Yet beneath the statistics lies something deeper.
Young people repeatedly tell us they feel unheard.
They tell us they feel disconnected from systems that are supposed to support them.
They tell us they struggle to find adults they can trust.
And they tell us they want to be part of shaping solutions rather than simply being the subject of discussions.
The challenge facing many young people today is not simply a lack of opportunity.
It is often a lack of connection.
A lack of belonging.
A lack of trusted relationships.
A lack of people willing to listen.
Partiality Is the Seed of Injustice
One of the strongest reflections to emerge from the It Starts With Listening campaign is a simple but powerful truth:
“Partiality is the seed of injustice.”
Injustice rarely begins with cruelty.
More often, it begins with who gets heard and who does not.
Who gets opportunities and who does not.
Who gets believed and who does not.
Who gets a second chance and who does not.
The truth is that many of the challenges highlighted in the Milburn Report are not new.
They are the consequences of decades of systemic failure.
Decades in which too many young people have been passed between services, labelled rather than understood, spoken about rather than listened to, and supported only after reaching crisis.
If we are serious about creating change, we must be honest about the lessons of the past and brave enough to build something different for the future.
Across the UK, thousands of young people tell us they feel invisible.
Not because nobody knows they exist.
But because too few people take the time to understand their experiences.
When some voices matter more than others, inequality grows.
When some young people receive support while others are overlooked, injustice takes root.
When some stories are listened to while others are dismissed, trust breaks down.
For Sam, this reality is all too familiar.
“The greatest injustice facing many young people today isn’t a lack of potential. It’s a lack of people willing to listen before problems become crises.”
Sam Smith, Founder & Co-Director, Genuine Futures
At Genuine Futures, we believe that every young person deserves the same opportunity to be heard, supported, and encouraged to succeed.
Because if partiality is the seed of injustice,
Listening is the seed of hope.
The Power of a Trusted Adult
One trusted adult can change a life.
Not because they have all the answers.
But because they listen.
A trusted adult could be a teacher, youth worker, sports coach, barber, business owner, neighbour, volunteer, employer, parent, or carer.
The role matters less than the relationship.
Young people repeatedly tell us that the adults who made the biggest difference were the ones who listened without judgement.
The ones who believed in them when they struggled to believe in themselves.
The ones who stayed when others walked away.
As Mike Alleyne, Co-Director of Genuine Futures, explains:
“Every young person carries a story. The question is whether we are prepared to listen long enough to understand it.”
And perhaps most importantly:
“The young people we work with don’t need rescuing. They need opportunities, belief, and adults who refuse to give up on them.”
What People Are Telling Us
The It Starts With Listening campaign has already generated powerful conversations with young people, parents, and professionals.
Young People’s Voices
“School gave up on me. Genuine Futures didn’t.”
“It’s the first place where I feel comfortable being myself.”
“Sometimes you don’t need someone to fix your problems. You just need someone to listen.”
Parents’ Voices
“For the first time in years, my son gets up because he knows somebody believes in him.”
“Nobody listened to us for months. Genuine Futures listened from day one.”
“My child didn’t need another assessment. He needed someone to understand him.”
Professionals’ Voices
“The challenge isn’t that young people don’t want support. The challenge is building relationships that make them feel safe enough to accept it.”
“When young people trust you, everything changes.”
Across all of these voices, one message remains consistent:
Relationships matter.
Young People Are Not Hard to Reach
One of the most damaging phrases used in our sector is “hard to reach.”
Young people are not hard to reach.
Many have simply experienced too many adults who stopped reaching.
As Sam often says:
“Young people are not hard to reach. Too many adults have simply stopped reaching.”
The responsibility is not on young people to become easier to reach.
The responsibility is on us to become better listeners.
Introducing the National Trusted Adults Survey
The It Starts With Listening campaign is launching a national conversation about trusted adults.
We want to hear from young people, parents, carers, teachers, youth workers, employers, volunteers, community leaders, and anyone who has experienced the impact of a trusted relationship.
Take Part in the National Trusted Adults Survey
National Trusted Adults Survey
Every response matters.
Every story matters.
Every voice matters.
This Is Bigger Than Genuine Futures
This campaign does not belong to one organisation.
It belongs to every young person who has ever felt unheard.
Every parent who has fought for support.
Every teacher, youth worker, coach, volunteer, and community leader who understands the power of a trusted relationship.
This is a national conversation.
A national movement.
And we need your voice.
Complete the survey.
Share it with your networks.
Start conversations.
Challenge assumptions.
Become a trusted adult.
Help us create communities where every young person has someone they can trust.
A Final Thought
The Milburn Report has highlighted the scale of the challenge facing young people across the UK.
But reports alone do not change lives.
Relationships do.
Communities do.
Trusted adults do.
Listening does.
“For decades, we have watched young people fall through the gaps of the very systems designed to safeguard them. The answer is not simply more programmes. It is stronger relationships, earlier intervention, and communities full of trusted adults. Partiality is the seed of injustice. Listening is the seed of hope. Every young person deserves someone who listens, someone who believes, and someone who stays.”
Sam Smith & Mike Alleyne, Genuine Futures
Because change doesn’t start with a programme.
It starts with a conversation.
It starts with a trusted relationship.
It starts with listening.
And it starts with you.
Join the Movement
Complete the survey: National Trusted Adults Survey
Visit Genuine Futures: Genuine Futures
#ItStartsWithListening #TrustedAdults #YouthVoice #MilburnReport #GenuineFutures #YouthWork #NEET #SocialMobility #LivedExperience #CommunityLearning #NationalLottery #EarlyIntervention #Belonging #ListeningMatters #YouthOpportunity