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#CloreSocialFellowFriday with Nic Kidston

Posted By Clore Social Leadership, 09 July 2021

This #CloreSocialFellowFriday, we sat down with Nic Kidston to talk about what  good leadership looks like, her career journey, and her work as the Deputy CEO and Head of Programs at Peer Power Youth and a Trustee of Clore Social leadership. Nic is a 2016 Clore Social Emerging Leader Fellow. 

Can you give us a little bit of background information about your role and your organisation? 

I’m the Deputy CEO and Head of Programs at Peer Power Youth, an empathy led youth charity working in health, justice, and social care. Our vision is of a world where empathy led services and systems support all children, teenagers and young adults to achieve their dreams and lead their best lives. We work with incredible individuals and young people with lived experience of trauma and adversity to support them to heal, find power in their stories, and develop the skills to influence youth services and become future leaders. We also work to influence system change, and have an embedded co-production approach throughout everything that we do. That means that our young partners, which is what we call the young people that we work with, are very much part of our team and have a voice in all of our processes and service delivery design.

In addition to my role with Peer Power Youth, I’m also a trustee at Clore Social Leadership, which is a really exciting opportunity to use my experience as a fellow and a senior leader in the social sector to influence the direction of the organisation.

What projects are you currently working on?

At the moment, we’re working on a really exciting project with the Youth Justice Board, where we’re investigating participation across youth justice services alongside our young partners. We’ll be launching a research report soon, as well as a series of resources to support embedded youth participation into the services themselves. We’re also working with the NHS on health and justice work and violence reduction programmes, where we go into secure settings and engage with the young people there to create a culture where their voices can be heard, respected, and responded to. 

During COVID lockdowns, young people in secure settings often felt even more isolated and disconnected from their support systems. So, during the pandemic, some of our young partners who have been through the criminal justice system reached out to them to provide some emotional connection and empathy from the perspective of a peer who has been through the system as opposed to an older professional. Behind all of our projects, there’s a driving force of empathy and an understanding that the young people that we work with often have been through serious trauma, and that trauma needs to be acknowledged as a part of their healing process. 

What does good leadership look like to you? 

For me, good leadership is about getting the best from the people around you and the collective impact that you can create together. I believe that the best leaders grow other leaders, which is something that really solidified for me during my Clore Social Fellowship. The peer support, tools and techniques were really a rocket booster for me in terms of using my personal values to create impact. In my current role, I always find myself coming back to the concept of generous leadership: how can I harness the strengths of young partners and give them the support they need to create change? It’s almost like talent spotting, and identifying the skills and different ways of thinking that people bring to the table. Because of that, a crucial part of good leadership is making sure that there are really diverse voices in the room and ensuring that everyone is in a supportive space where they feel comfortable to contribute. 

Similarly, good leadership is also about keeping your team united and focused on common goals, vision, and values without being the person at the front with all the answers. One of my key passions is for connecting individuals to larger change by taking small ideas, piloting them, trying them out, and building on them. That might involve working collaboratively in partnership with other organisations to create impact across the social sector and beyond. 

Tell us about your leadership journey; have you always held those core leadership values, or did you discover and develop them over time?

I suppose I’ve always held those core values, but there’s something empowering about the journey of owning them. The Clore Social Fellowship gave me the permission to really delve into my values and examine what I’m good at, and what I needed. I also found the leadership framework of knowing yourself, being yourself, and looking after yourself really meaningful. Before starting my position with Peer Power Youth, I took a break from work to spend time with my family, and before the programme, I don’t think that I would have been able to give myself permission to take time out. During coaching and through self reflection I realised that it was the right time to make that decision.


When I started thinking about where to go next, I used those values and core skills to guide my job search, and when the opportunity with Peer Power Youth came up it felt like a perfect match. At the same time, the opportunity to become a Clore Social trustee opened up, and I saw an opportunity to really make a difference in terms of expanding digital training and making leadership opportunities available to everyone. 

What are you looking forward to? 

We’ve had a crazy year, and despite that the social sector has been able to achieve some remarkable things and has made huge strides in digital transformation, collaboration, and focusing on personal wellbeing. In the short term, I’m looking forward to meeting inspiring colleagues and young partners face to face. I feel like we’re at a really pivotal moment in the social sector where we have to take big steps to make change happen, and one of the ways to do that is through united, strong leadership across the sector. 


You can find Nic on Twitter @nicston and on LinkedIn.

You can find Peer Power Youth on Twitter @Peer_PowerUK and Facebook.

If you would like to be featured for a #CloreSocialFellowFriday, send us an email at info@cloresocialleadership.org.uk. 

 

Tags:  #CloreSocialFellowFriday 

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