Out of the Box

Out of the Box is our joint project with The National Youth Agency. Thanks to funding from the Department for Children Schools and Families we are running projects to identify ways to get young people who are not interested in formal education, to get fired up about reading.

The report on phase one of this project is now available and you can download it from Resources.

We are aiming to achieve this by:

  • encouraging young people in youth groups and other settings to read more
  • supporting activities that encourage young people in youth groups and other setting to read more
  • getting young people involved in choosing reading materials
  • developing projects with librarians and youth workers that get young people reading more
  • spreading the word about the most effective ways of getting young people reading more.

Six projects in Dorset, Portsmouth, Stockton, Hertfordshire, Lancashire and Norfolk are currently testing the Out of the Box approach. The plan is to learn from their experience so that by the end of March 2009 we will have increased our understanding about what works and does not work.

In particular we are looking at:

  • how librarians and youth workers can work in partnership
  • how opportunities can be developed for young people in non-formal setting
  • pracitcal ways to get young people interested in reading, including through groupthing our new website for young people
  • how reading can support informal education opportunities
  • if librarians, youth workers and young people's have different attitudes to reading
  • if reading activities are a sustainable way of supporting informal education
  • if there are any pre-requisits for things working (or, indeed, not working)

We'd love to hear from you if you are running or have run any reading based projects with young people. If you have any case studies or reports please email them to outofthebox@readingagency.org.uk

Download the report on phase one from Resources and check back for more information soon as we enter phase two.