Community Engagement
Community Engagement in the work of Kids Inspire.
The Community Engagement team at Kids Inspire are dedicated to supporting children, young people and their families in local communities, building relationships, and raising awareness of our services. Our team are:
Carla – Community Engagement Manager
Clara – Deputy Community Engagement Manager
Jane – Community Engagement Officer
Romany – Community Engagement Officer
What do we do?
Our Community Engagement work covers:
Relationship Building with Schools: Collaborating with local schools to support students through assemblies, workshops, and more
Community Events & Partnerships: Engaging with local communities through events and partnerships
The Voice Youth Group: Empowering young people to grow in confidence, develop social skills, and make new friends in a safe, supportive environment.
What is Community Engagement?
Community Engagement is about involvement and active participation in initiatives that promote the welfare of the community. At Kids Inspire, we focus on:
improving resilience in local communities
raising awareness of Kids Inspire and our services
supporting young people and their families through our work
Our approach
We follow an asset-based approach, focusing on what’s strong within communities. Our collaborative mindset helps us work effectively with others to extend our reach and impact.
Community events
The Community Engagement Team identifies areas where children and young people (CYP) need support and partners with local organizations to deliver events that benefit the community. We focus on:
raising awareness of Kids Inspire services
delivering free wellbeing events for families
partnership working with community groups to identify gaps and needs for young people.
Young people in Essex and Suffolk
Kids Inspire supports young people across Essex and Suffolk by reducing isolation and loneliness. We help build confident, connected communities through creative expression, physical activity, and relationship-building—bringing people of all ages together.
What’s coming up?
PROM-Unity 2025
We’ve extended our weekday appointments at our Great Baddow office until Wednesday 25 June! Please email us to book a time.
Did you receive a free prom dress or suit from us?
If it needs alterations, you're in luck! We're partnering with fashion students from Chelmsford College who are kindly offering free alterations for outfits given out at our event.
To learn more and find out where to take your outfit, just email: lithcos@chelmsford.ac.uk.
FREE Mindful and Creative Kids (MACK) LEGO workshop - The Hold, Ipswich
1st August - 10am to 12noon
Bring your child along for this fun, educational, and FREE LEGO workshop, where they'll follow Mack the Otter's heart-warming journey as he travels through Ipswich, building with LEGO along the way.
Click here to book
Our recent highlights
Thrivefest 2025
Our team had an amazing time at Thrivefest in Suffolk, a fantastic event led by young people, all about health and wellbeing! We were thrilled to run two interactive workshops for 16-18-year-olds, helping them feel inspired and empowered to set goals for their future through vision board creation
Want to see what we got up to in 2024? Feel free to read our blog and check out our instagram!
School Assemblies and Workshops
Primary Schools
Our interactive assembly and workshops aim to focus on spreading awareness about what we do at Kids Inspire and how we can teach young people to manage their emotional wellbeing. We do this by providing opportunities for young people to have meaningful conversations with the community engagement team and their peers.
Important: Bookings are currently full for the rest of this academic year, however we are now accepting bookings from September 2025 for primary schools in Bury St Edmunds, Chelmsford, Colchester and Ipswich Local Authority areas.
Feedback received from some schools in Essex and Suffolk on our primary school assemblies and workshops,
“The assembly was child friendly and easy to follow”
“There was plenty of child engagement and it aligned with our zones of regulation”
“The interactive element of the assembly was great and several children have come to talk to me today about their worries (inspired by your assembly)”
“The assembly and workshop was well presented and engaging”
“The workshop encouraged lots of talks about feelings following the sessions”
“ The children loved using Lego to understand more about their emotions”
“ The children really enjoyed the Year 6 resilience workshops and were heard talking about them at the school gate to their parents/carers”
Years 1 to 5 assembly - How to manage your worries (up to 25 mins)
A 25 minute interactive assembly to learn about Kids Inspire and ways to manage small worries.
Due to capacity and for effective delivery, we can only deliver up to two assemblies on the same day.
Year 6 - Resilience with empathy workshop (up to 75 mins)
A fun and engaging workshop using group discussion and activities to explore resilience and empathy.
or
Year 6 - Empowerment with empathy workshop (up to 75 mins)
A fun and engaging workshop using group discussion and activities to explore empowerment and empathy.
Both workshops aim to help your Year 6 students to learn the importance of being resilient and feeling empowered with empathy, ready to make positive choices for managing exams, transition to year 7 and other challenging life events.
Important - When requesting a workshop, please select either the resilience or empowerment workshop, we can only deliver up to 2 workshops of the same theme (up to 30 students per workshop).
Secondary Schools
Year 8 - The Weight of our Words workshop (up to 75 mins)
Enquiries now open - From September 2025, your school* will be able to book our workshop which explores topics, such as Bullying, Empowerment, Peer Pressure and Resilience, all with the underlying message of how words can impact our wellbeing, positive and negative.
This workshop has been co-produced by a cohort of Year 8s at a high school in Ipswich, who wanted the above topics covered.
*If you work in a secondary school in Bury St Edmunds, Chelmsford, Colchester or Ipswich and would like further information, please email communityengagement@kidsinspire.org.uk and we will send you a planning meeting enquiry form.
What do we mean by ‘community’?
Community includes the relationships, bonds, identities, and interests that join people together and give them a shared stake in a place, service or culture.
Communities take many different forms, but all are made up of people who have something in common, such as living in the same area, or having common experiences, such as being supporters of the same football club
Underpinning good health
Public Health England says that community life and social connections underpin good health. Social networks are the very building blocks of wellbeing.
Holiday Clubs
Holiday Clubs are full of fun activities
Prom-Unity
Prom outfit giveaway for young people
Building community connections
Our Community Engagement team in Suffolk
Page updated: 30 April 2025