Mental Health & Wellbeing• Funding Support• Alternative Physical Activity• Online Safety CPD• Youth Violence Intervention• Fully Vetted Programmes• Digital Media & Storytelling• Trauma-Informed CPD• Financial Education• KCSIE Compliant• Social Action Projects• School Readiness Support• Mental Health & Wellbeing• Funding Support• Alternative Physical Activity• Online Safety CPD• Youth Violence Intervention• Fully Vetted Programmes• Digital Media & Storytelling• Trauma-Informed CPD• Financial Education• KCSIE Compliant• Social Action Projects• School Readiness Support•

Our mission

We didn't form because we saw a market gap, but because the system fails people we know and cared about.

Four practitioners. Different backgrounds. The same frustration: brilliant youth workers doing life-changing work, cut off from schools and communities by a wall of admin, compliance burden and fractured funding.

Together, they built The CAN — the infrastructure that was always missing.

The reality

When youth spaces close, the pressure doesn't vanish. It lands on families, teachers and classrooms.

73% fall

in local authority youth services funding since 2010

£1.3bn

structural deficit in youth services across England

1 in 5

young people show signs of poor mental health before they leave school

40%

of a small provider's time spent on admin — not on young people

Brilliant youth workers are out there. Schools are desperate for their help. But between the two sits a wall of compliance checks, short-term grant cycles and administrative burdens that neither side has the capacity to climb. So partnerships fall through, and young people miss out.

"We knew exactly the kind of support our students needed. We just couldn't get it through the door."

— Deputy Headteacher, Redbridge · East London

Two problems, one cause

Schools and youth workers were both stuck — just in different ways.

For schools

The compliance wall

Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) requires schools to exhaustively vet every external provider. It's the right call — but an enormous burden on staff who are already managing rising demand with flat budgets. So the easier answer is: say no.

For youth providers

The survival trap

Most grants in the youth sector last under a year. Small providers spend nearly half their time writing bids, chasing invoices and keeping the lights on. When a grant ends, vital relationships with young people are cut overnight.

"For years, I was doing impactful work in communities while carrying the weight of everything alone. I want to create the kind of support, connection and backing I wish I'd had myself, because no-one doing good work should have to do it on their own."

Marcus, Director of We are no different - CAN Delivery Partner

The problem isn't a lack of talent, dedication or need. It's a structural gap — no coordination layer connecting schools, providers and funders in a way that works for all three.

That's what The CAN was built to be.

Our team

Founded by practitioners. Built from experience.

The CAN is led by a team that combines frontline youth experience, clinical expertise, commercial rigour and educational insight.

Matthew Johnson

Founder & Director — Youth engagement, schools & safeguarding

Matthew is a youth engagement specialist whose career has been built in and around the communities The CAN serves. He led the Prince's Trust Young Ambassador programme in London, worked across the capital on mentoring and relationship-led intervention, and is a qualified teacher with direct insight into what schools need from external providers.

His background in education recruitment and safer recruitment compliance gives The CAN an understanding of how schools operate — and what it takes for an external programme to land well, safely, and without burdening school staff.

Matthew leads school and community partnerships, youth engagement strategy, safeguarding culture and programme quality assurance.

Photo: Jermaine Ferdinand — considered, confident, natural setting

Jermaine Ferdinand

Founder & Director — Strategy, partnerships & growth

Jermaine brings 17 years of senior leadership at IBM across operational management, strategic partnerships and technology transformation in EMEA markets. He holds a First-Class BSc in Computer Science, an MBA with Distinction from Warwick Business School, and has undertaken executive education at London Business School and Harvard Business School.

His career has been shaped by a belief that meaningful social impact requires the same systems thinking and operational discipline that drive the best commercial organisations. The CAN is where that conviction found its purpose.

Jermaine leads funding strategy, corporate partnerships, governance and organisational sustainability.

Photo: Ferzana Awan — warm, clinical confidence, real setting

Ferzana Awan

Founder & Director — Wellbeing, therapeutic practice & safeguarding

Ferzana is a youth practitioner and mental health specialist with more than 15 years' experience supporting children, young people and families across education, health, social care and community settings. She is currently completing a Master's in Art Psychotherapy at the University of Roehampton, with clinical placements in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

Her work has centred on young people affected by trauma, exploitation, domestic abuse and social exclusion — giving The CAN a clinical depth and therapeutic grounding that most network organisations lack.

Ferzana leads delivery partner engagement, safeguarding compliance, therapeutic quality assurance and vulnerable learner pathways.

Callum Ingram

Founder & Director — Marketing, analytics & evidence

Callum is a qualified teacher who taught in East London, and a strategic consultant whose career spans education, community development, recruitment, technology and entrepreneurship across the UK and Australia — including community and economic development in remote settings where place-based support makes or breaks outcomes.

He has held senior and board-level roles across private, public and third-sector organisations, and has consistently worked at the intersection of commercial reality and human impact — translating complex problems into practical plans.

Callum leads marketing strategy, website, impact evidence, CRM systems and research analytics.

How we're structured

Front-office and back-office, working together.

Relationship and delivery expertise alongside strategic and evidence infrastructure. Neither works without the other.

Front-office

Schools, communities & delivery quality

Building trusted relationships with schools, communities and delivery partners. Ensuring programmes are relevant, accessible and properly safeguarded. Activation, quality assurance, participant experience.

Matthew Johnson & Ferzana Awan

Back-office

Strategy, funding, growth & evidence

Securing the financial and systems infrastructure to sustain and grow the network. Funding bids, governance, marketing, data, impact measurement and reporting. The engine that keeps delivery running.

Jermaine Ferdinand & Callum Ingram

What drives us

Three core beliefs.

Systemic, not symptomatic

Young people aren't failing the system. The system is failing them.

We work on the infrastructure, not just the symptoms. The most important thing we can do is make the system function so that brilliant practitioners can do their jobs.

Community-led

An amplifier doesn't create from scratch. It takes an existing signal and makes it powerful.

The best answers already exist in communities. We're not importing solutions — we're amplifying the exceptional practitioners already embedded in the communities they serve, and giving them the stability to keep going.

Accountable

Every pound should be traceable to impact.

As an asset-locked CIC, we're legally bound to our community purpose. Our SROI framework means we can show exactly where impact is created — and prove it to the people who fund it.