How young people actually change.
Empath's work is built on a three-phase model adapted from Dandurand & Heist (2022). It moves a young person from a trusted hook activity, through the building of social, human and psychological capital, into life-skills transfer and cognitive change.
Phase 1
Accessible activities that build trust
An accessible 'hook' activity — sport, arts or tech — is the first door in. It has to feel like the young person's own choice, be offered consistently, and put a trusted coach or mentor in front of them every week.
Process
- The hook must be accessible, regular and feel like something different
- Young people develop ownership and a sense of belonging
- Trusting relationships form with coaches and mentors
- Role models become visible and credible
- Participants feel valued and listened to — re-engagement loops catch drop-offs
Activities
- • Non-contact boxing
- • Football
- • Functional fitness and conditioning
- • Other accessible sport
- • Music production
- • Visual arts
- • Film-making
- • Photography
- • Video editing
- • Game design
- • Coding
What we measure
Phase 2
Building social, human and psychological capital
Once trust is in place, pro-social interactions become the engine for building the three forms of capital young people need: who they know (social), what they can do (human), and how they think and feel about themselves (psychological).
Process
- Social capital — "Who you know and how you relate to others"
- Human capital — "What you know and can do"
- Psychological capital — "How you think and feel about yourself and your future" (hope, optimism, self-efficacy, resilience)
- Together these open up more pro-social pathways
Activities
- • Peer team challenges
- • Mentor check-ins
- • Regular 1:1 or small-group conversations
- • Community connection
- • Group reflection circles
- • Short, structured conversations after sessions
- • Goal-setting workshops
- • Problem-solving tasks
- • Real-world challenges
- • Skills translation sessions
- • Strength-spotting activities
- • Emotional regulation tools
- • Identity exploration
- • Resilience mapping
What we measure
Phase 3
Life skills transfer and cognitive transformation
The final phase is where change becomes durable. Young people apply skills to real responsibility, reflect on past behaviour, and start to reconstruct their social identity — branching into one of four progression pathways.
Process
- Willingness to change
- Life skills transfer into real situations
- Cognitive shifts in how they see themselves and their choices
- Reconstruction of social identity
- Specific change: reduced violence, offending, bullying, isolation or improved mental health
Activities
- • Real-world responsibility roles
- • Time-bound challenges
- • Conflict navigation tasks
- • Decision-making under pressure
- • Independent task completion
- • Reflection on past behaviour vs current choices
- • Perspective-taking exercises
- • Understanding impact on others
- • Future-self mapping
- • Values clarification
- • Identifying non-negotiables
What we measure
Four ways forward.
No single route works for every young person. Phase 3 opens into four progression pathways, chosen with the participant and the team around them.
- 01Continuous hook activity
Stay engaged with the sport, arts or tech activity that first brought them in.
- 02Mentorship programme
Deeper 1:1 or small-group mentoring with trained coaches and youth workers.
- 03Volunteering & work experience
Step into responsibility through Second Corner placements and community roles.
- 04Programme-specific routes
Tailored next steps designed around each young person's strengths and goals.
A model we keep testing.
We adopt this framework openly so partners, funders and young people can hold us to it. Every programme — Second Corner, boxing in schools, education and culture — is mapped onto these three phases and the metrics attached to them.