The Foresight Initiative: What’s possible.

Posted by Melanie Goodman, May 31, 2023

In the early days of the pandemic, we worried about how young people would come through it, and what trauma would result from this total disruption in their lives. We worried about families scrambling to manage the chaos of working and schooling from home, and agencies trying desperately to hang on to their people. In the public sphere, we were confronting longstanding problems around racial injustice and pay inequity, and political unrest was rocking our communities. The world was upside down along with many of our assumptions.

Yet in 2020, within this dynamic context, we reimagined the future for Youth Catalytics, generated a new plan, and devised these three strategic directions: anticipating the future, promoting innovation, and amplifying the youth perspective.

Then in 2021 we launched The Foresight Initiative, and set out to discover the new perspectives, adaptations, and innovations that would lead the way. We did three things, and heard the following:

Facilitated focused conversations with young people and practitioners:

Curated information from specialists in the child and youth services field and surveyed experts:

Interviewed a diverse set of leaders across the field:

We believe some of the biggest wins during this period of loss have been a universal appreciation for the value of lived experience, more professional collaboration, and our collective wellbeing. Young people are now actively improving programming with their feedback and recommendations, professional collaboration is on the rise, and despite the heaviness of this work, leaders and practitioners are reconnecting with their purpose and prioritizing well-being for themselves and others.

From the outset, The Foresight Initiative intended to showcase experimentation, project young voices, and inspire forward-thinking practice, and here is the result. Let us know what you think.

Learn more about The Foresight Initiative here.