Introducing AllChild

For eight years, we have been helping children and young people find new opportunities for social, emotional, and academic growth under the name West London Zone. We are now excited to be relaunching under a new name and brand, AllChild.

Making a change like this is a serious undertaking and one we have considered very carefully, especially given the deep relationships we have with our partner schools, public bodies, local voluntary organisations, wonderful donors, and, most importantly, the children, young people, and families with whom we work. So, what were we thinking? Why AllChild and why now?

Firstly, we now know that our model of in-school, hyperlocal, community-enabled, and personalised support for children and young people - inspired by the world’s first ‘children’s zone’, the ground-breaking Harlem Children’s Zone - helps them to flourish in whatever life they choose. Now we're committing to applying this model to support as many children and young people in underserved neighbourhoods of the UK as possible.

Our new strategy is based around three levels of ambition: individual children and young people (people),the places they live (place), and national policymaking (prevention). It aims to deliver:

1.    Even greater support for the children and young people we work with.

2.    New Impact Programmes in new areas of the UK.

3.    Broader social change by mobilising joined-up local support systems that strengthen communities and influencing policymaking at a national level.

As part of this new ambition, this September we are launching the first translations of our approach outside of West London. New Impact Programmes will launch in the communities of Leigh, Atherton, and Tyldesley in Wigan, all co-designed with Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council, Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership, local schools, and voluntary sector organisations. 

This all means that the West London Zone name could no longer carry the weight of our work and our ambition for enabling community-led support for children and young people across the country - and so it was time for a new name and brand. Our challenge was to find one that fitted our new strategy, said something more about what we do and how we do it, and that resonated with our hugely diverse stakeholders.

We engaged in a thorough process, consulting with employees, donors, parents, programme alumni, and our new project partners in Wigan and, in the end, we always arrived back at our new name needing to be about those who matter to us most: children and young people who deserve new opportunities to flourish. Our approach is about ‘the whole child’, their unique social, emotional, and academic needs, not just in school but outside, in their communities. We arrived at a name that represents how we’re all about the child, all around the child, all for the child - AllChild.

Thus, we have a new name, and a new brand but what we strive for remains the same. Our work with the children and young people in our programmes – delivered by our amazing team of in-school Link Workers - is just as committed.

All our stakeholders should expect exactly the same dedication to the children, young people, and families with whom we work. But also new efforts to strengthen communities through joined up place-based systems change and an influence on national policymaking in the adoption of community-led support models that we know can help children and young people flourish.

So, look out for the AllChild brand and we hope you like it!