2022 launches the Foyer Federation’s 30th birthday celebration with the publication of ‘Adventures in Advantaged Thinking’ - a work in which we have brought together the asset-based best practice, insights and voices from the first decade of Advantaged Thinking into a beautiful resource, shared for free thanks to support from Your Housing Group and the spirit of generous giving that continues to characterise Foyer Federation’s Home for Advantaged Thinking.
I have been really grateful for the opportunity to work with Foyer Federation and Your Housing group on this collaboration, and appreciated the creative freedom I was given in my writing. Advantaged Thinking might be the approach I founded, but no one ever works alone.
'Adventures in Advantaged Thinking' was the original title for a blog I first established in 2011 – ‘to find the places, people, opportunities, deals and campaigns that harness the talents of all young people. Wherever in the world, the aim as an 'advantaged thinker' is to breakthrough the deficits and disadvantages limiting human potential. And to do so with courage, wit and style’. That old blog had its moments of notoriety, from my critique of a Prince’s Trust funding poster in Hackney, to the crazed Advantaged Thinking performance of ‘A Night of Bananas’ at a London theatre in 2014. But the new publication goes far further to achieve a long-held dream for the DNA of Advantaged Thinking to be accessible as a road for everyone to travel on.
In the writing process, I reflected on how important it was that Advantaged Thinking had so many brilliant supporters over the years – from funders such as Virgin Unite and Paul Hamlyn Foundation, through to the practice and policy innovations from Brotherhood of Saint Laurence and others in Australia, and the many young people I’ve worked with in this time, from various Foyers to my own Team Young People at InspireChilli and the amazing We Belong today.
Like all journeys, it’s also had its darker spots – the loss of Jane Slowey, whose spirit was certainly part of this publication; my own parents’ death; and, as everyone in the charity and enterprise sector will recognise, those experiences where you are stuck fighting for survival while trying to reach ahead to build the thriving world we wish for. Ultimately, Advantaged Thinking runs on belief, and it’s that energy which has kept all those involved in its story connected together.
On a very personal note, when I get my printed copy, I will remember back to a moment shared with the wonderful Lorna Sage at one of her memorable parties at UEA, where we made a drunken pact that she would write Bad Blood (a book of tremendous power), and I would do ‘my postmodern thing’ which I was still too innocent to define. As someone who passionately believed in the transformational power of language and narrative, Lorna would have recognised that Adventures in Advantaged Thinking was the 'thing' she first signposted me into the world of teaching to discover.
It’s remembering the contributions from everyone, alongside the next wave of new innovators, that keeps the Adventure that is Advantaged Thinking alive in us all.
As the forward to 'Adventures in Advantaged Thinking' says, ''For all those who share our passion for Advantaged Thinking – now and in the future – we hope this is a gift that will keep on giving. Please add to it, make it your own, and promote its ambition to others'.
Download your free copy now at: https://www.foyer.net/adventures-in-advantaged-thinking
