Spirited Futures is a Leadership Academy for Young Changemakers and Trailblazers

We help young people become more confident by supporting them in a journey to connect with their inner wisdom. Our aim is to support them on their journey to be the change our world needs right now.

Refer a young person About us

Ella throwing her arms up in the air in the forest.

What We Do

Our Retreats

We offer Nature-based retreats and workshops in the UK, taking young participants on a journey of self-discovery and bypassing conventional systems to foster a unique approach to connecting to the leader within.

We remain responsive to the needs of the young individuals and the environment. We will continue to evolve and anticipate co-creating the programme with our young people with an inclusive and diverse approach to participants. Our aim is to create a conscious crop of new leaders for the huge challenges ahead and to encourage those who might not otherwise have access to such a programme because of their background, or socio-economic circumstances.

A group of students in a workshop at Broughton Hall

Mentoring

Our co-mentoring programme ‘Symbiosis’ is brought to you by YouththeGap and Spirited Futures
- who are committed to nurturing future change-makers and established leaders by fostering an inclusive and equitable learning environment.
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The programme is rooted in the following principles:
• Inspiration from the interconnected ecosystems of nature
• Practice of reciprocal and non hierarchical mentoring
• Intergenerational connection, collaboration and co-creation
• Guidance from a decolonizing approach

This is a rolling programme where Oaks and Shoots are matched and then required to meet for at least six sessions over a three month period.
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Why We Exist

What makes us different?

A yoga instructor teaching a class with a gong in the background.

The “soul” purpose of the academy is to help young people aged 18-25 realise their unique potential as future leaders.

We support and champion young individuals who want to create change for the planet and its people through nature-based retreats, workshops and ongoing mentoring and support.

Over-consumption and excess greed has stripped our planet down; it is now impacting the earth’s capacity to re-generate itself. Our dependency on industrial growth and carbon is untenable. We need new solutions to stop societies breaking and heal divisions in our communities. This programme aims to give young people the tools and confidence to follow their inner wisdom and solve some of these problems for future generations.

We believe in Teaching, Embodiment and Community

Wisdom

Connection

Community

Nature

Change

Disruption

Education

We're guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and we tackle 10 of the 17 Goals:

Our Impact

Collaborating with the academy

We will be co-collaborating and co-designing with our experienced wisdom elders and our new young changemakers to ensure we build an innovative leadership academy that responds to the challenges of our changing world.

Responding to the global community

We are building our community and will have measurements and data collection points to ensure that we are responding to our participants and the needs of them and the global community.

Reporting & receiving feedback

We will report regularly on the impact of our work through annual reporting and feedback from the community.

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Our Story

Spirited Futures is the brainchild of Karen Stenning who became passionate about creating a pathway to conscious leadership for a new generation during a Spirited Business retreat at Broughton Hall in 2021. Stenning has worked with young people and vulnerable communities for many years – including a decade at Kids’ Company. During her own transformative journey she had a vision of passing the baton to a new generation and helping them fulfil their purpose and help the planet and humanity. She enlisted Spirited Business leader Jarvis Smith and his co-retreat leader Pip Bray to help bring this vision to life.

In 2021, the team brought Char Bailey on board to help deliver high energy workshops.
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The first Spirited Futures retreat happened in November 2021, with six remarkable young people who care about the environment, mental health issues and social concerns. Through immersion in nature, constellation workshops and dialogue about future pathways we helped the young leaders manifest their visions for the future.