Our Story
YourStory was founded in 2003 by Adrian Jones in his living room. At the start we used mentoring through sport to tackle underachievement and anti-social behaviour. Over the years, the services we provide have expanded to include mentoring and family support services. We have also been joined by staff and volunteers from all walks of life and have worked with a variety of schools across London, and have been funded by many different organisations, for which we are extremely grateful.
Adrian Jones
YourStory was founded by Adrian Jones in 2003. After being unemployed after graduating from university, Adrian began working in a job centre helping people to write CVs. He noticed that a lot of unemployed people had suffered due to a lack of education (reading and writing skills). This highlighted the need to Adrian to work with young people in order to stop this cycle.
He began volunteering with young people, but discovered that there were funding restrictions limiting the help he could provide them to only mentoring, not family or education support. As a result of this, Adrian set up YourStory in order to holistically help young people across all aspects of their development and growth.
Our History
Adrian Jones (CEO and founder)
Our CEO hard at work in one of our previous offices.
Origins
The living room of our CEO, where YourStory was born. We started with just one person working with four boys from a single school in Brixton, and YourStory now has a number of dedicated mentors.
Mentoring through sport
YourStory originally used mentoring through sport in order to try to re-engage young people in education and keep them on the right track.
Our Objectives
YourStory works with vulnerable young people in a holistic way to address the different needs and pressures they experience on a daily basis. We help equip them with the skills and confidence needed to take control of their lives, to explore opportunities presented to them and to do their best in life to achieve their full potential.
We aim to challenge, inspire and support the young people that we work with. We work with our young people to increase their confidence in asking for help when they don’t understand school work, identity, purpose in life, goals, part time jobs, developing hobbies, working out frustrations, personality tests / analysis, helping to turnaround negative attitudes and moods, body image problems, self esteem, anxiety management techniques and how to make friends.
Our work develops
- Confidence and self-esteem
- Employment prospects
- Attitudes towards educations
- Family well-being
Through the use of
- One on one mentoring
- School workshops
- Dedicated family support
- Work with supporting agencies