Our partnership model brought to life - celebrating the Wigan launch event
On Monday, we were delighted to celebrate the launch of AllChild’s work in Wigan in a room filled with people from across sectors wanting the very best for Wigan’s children and families - Wigan Council, local voluntary and community organisations, schools, public health, social investors, philanthropists and national government. It was the AllChild partnership model brought to life!
We had the pleasure of welcoming pioneering and influential speakers to the event:
- Rt Hon Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
- Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham
- Colette Dutton, Director of Children's Services for Wigan
- Phil Chamberlain, The National Lottery Community Fund’s England Director
- Iwona Szmidt, Bank of America’s Managing Director and Site Lead for Chester
- Dame Rachel de Souza, Children's Commissioner for England, via a special video message
Hosted at Leigh Sports Village, home of 2023 Challenge Cup winners Leigh Leopards and Manchester United WFC, our speakers spoke passionately of the value of ‘whole child whole community’ approaches, cross-sector collaboration and locally rooted programme design that is vital for helping communities across Greater Manchester and beyond to provide the early action and opportunities children and young people need to flourish.
The event was opened by Bank of America’s Iwona Szmidt, a key supporter of AllChild since 2019, who spoke to the impact of equipping children with social, emotional and academic skills for tackling systemic societal inequalities.
The Culture Secretary and Mayor both have deep connections to the area (Lisa Nandy is MP for Wigan and Andy Burnham, who grew up two miles from our venue, was MP for Leigh) and both heralded the fantastic work that Wigan Council – our key partner in our new Wigan programme - is already doing to strengthen communities. They emphasised the impact that programmes rooted in partnerships like AllChild’s could have not just across Wigan and Greater Manchester, but across the country.
Director of Children’s Services Colette Dutton had an insightful conversation with AllChild’s Regional Director, and event host, Jenny Muter, as they discussed the deeply collaborative co-design and co-delivery of the new programme with voluntary and community organisations, local schools and families.
The importance of putting community at the heart of programmes like ours was a key message by The National Lottery Community Fund’s Phil Chamberlain, who have been a longtime supporter of AllChild and are a cornerstone funder of our Wigan project.
The national relevance and potential of AllChild’s work was made clear not only from the speeches and discussions in the room, but also by Children’s Commissioner for England Dame Rachel de Souza as she spoke of the hardships children across the country are facing that must be addressed through collaborative and cross-sector partnerships like AllChild’s.
Thank you to all our speakers for their meaningful presence, and crucially, to the young people and families whose voices we heard via special video messages and through art they had created just for the event.
Using our event to support the launch of the government’s new National Youth Strategy, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy announced that, "a child's life doesn't stop at the school gates and neither should we".
Monday’s event not only celebrated the launch of AllChild’s first out of London partnership, but also our ambitious vision to see children in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods across the country flourishing through early action and opportunities rooted within their community and tailored to their local context. Our 10 year vision is to permanently transform outcomes for young people across the country and catalyse a national movement towards this way of working.
We look forward to working with everyone that joined us for the celebration, and more, in the coming months and years to make this partnership and vision a success - for Leigh, Atherton & Tyldesley, Greater Manchester and beyond.
