Nicola Bacon

Nicola is the Young Foundation’s Local Projects Director and is responsible for the Young Foundation’s work with local authorities and other partner agencies on local social innovation. The team she leads now works with over 50 local authorities, as well as Whitehall departments, community organisations and other front line agencies.

Nicola is on leave until January 2009. Please contact Clare Demuth, the interim Local Projects Director, for information about the work of the Local Innovation team.

Nicola has set up major programmes on Neighbourhoods, Wellbeing and London. These bring together variety of agencies in cross-sectoral partnerships and collaboratives. The focus is on improving the quality of life for individuals and communties by changing the way that services are delivered on the ground. The team uses a variety of techniques to achieve this including action research, facilitation, action learning and a variety of applied research approaches.

Nicola is developing new workstreams on housing and local government innovation.

More about Nicola

Before joining the Young Foundation, Nicola worked at the Home Office where she was a Deputy Director of the Anti-social Behaviour Unit; part of her remit focused on young people and family support. Previously she was Director of Safe in the City, an SRB-funded action research programme set up to pilot new ways of preventing youth homelessness in London by working with young people and their families. She was also Director of Policy at Shelter where she carried out major projects on housing investment, housing benefit and changes needed to the homelessness legislation.

Publications list

• Promoting wellbeing and neighbourliness, with Geoff Mulgan, Solace, 2008 
• Transformers. Young Foundation/Nesta report 2008
• Transforming Neighbourhoods: lessons from local work in 15 areas, Young Foundation report 2007
• Various Young Foundation reports on neighbourhood working at the local authority level
• North East London: a case study of globalisation, Young Foundation report 2006
• Local power for local people, article 2006
• Working with communities to tackle low level disorder and anti-social behaviour, article 2006
• The World in our neighbourhoods: a briefing from the Young Foundation, Young Foundation report 2006
• Safe in the City: a practical guide to preventing youth homelessness, Safe in the City, 2001
• The homes we need and how to pay for them, Shelter, 2000
• Access denied: the exclusion of vulnerable people from social housing, Shelter 1998
• A good practice guide for housing associations in race equality, National Housing Federation, 1997
• Future directions for social housing, Housing Corporation, 1996

Contact

tanya.barrett(AT)youngfoundation.org or call 020 8709 9297