Guest Northern Highlight - Will Carr, BookTrust

 Guest Northern Highlight 
Will Carr

Senior Partnership Magager for the North of England, BookTrust 

Can you tell us about BookTrust?

 Reading and sharing stories changes people’s lives. BookTrust is the largest reading charity in the UK: we provide books, resources and support to get every child reading regularly and by choice.

BookTrust reaches millions of children every year through book-gifting programmes and our work in libraries and schools. We support families to share stories from the earliest possible moment and children to develop lifelong reading habits. To do this we work with all kinds of different partners, such as publishers, children’s centres, libraries and health professionals. From running the national Children's Laureate programme to giving out books to families and schools, delivering exciting reading campaigns or celebrating the very best children's books with our prizes, everything we do aims to inspire children of all ages to get reading.

 

How do you feel about the recent move of Book Trust's HeadQuarters to Leeds? 

BookTrust has always been a national organisation, working across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have offices in London, Cardiff and Belfast, but our head office is now in Leeds, and this has already opened up opportunities for us. We’ve also expanded our regional teams, and now have more colleagues based all over the country which means we can get closer to the families we want to reach. It has only been a few months, but we’ve already made new connections and are part of new conversations we otherwise might not have had.

 

What does a typical work day look like for you in your new role focused on the North, and what is the most rewarding part of your job? 

I am in a new team of four working specifically on developing partnerships and projects for BookTrust across the North of England. At the moment a big priority for us is setting up the second year of our flagship Early Years pilot programme, which works with partners across the region to get books into the hands of toddlers and pre-schoolers from disadvantaged backgrounds. This is part of BookTrust’s new strategy, ‘The Next Chapter’, which prioritises support for disadvantaged children and families for whom the benefits of reading can be transformative. We’re aiming to set up relationships through lots of different routes to reach these children, which can range from prisons, housing associations and arts festivals to our long-established library and school partnerships.  

Everyone at BookTrust is committed to getting children reading, and for us making this happen on both a small and a large scale is really important. It can be really rewarding seeing the tangible difference reading can make to a child who experiences a storytelling session or receives a book for the first time, and equally it is great to be part of a major effort to reach the thousands of children right across the region and the country who need our support.

 

How do you feel the work you do at Book Trust positively impacts people in the North of England? 

Families across the country are experiencing all kinds of hardship and challenges, and we are committed to supporting all families in need. I would say though that it is clear that the North of England that has suffered more than most from persistent deprivation of all kinds over many years - lack of opportunity, education, poor health, underinvestment – and our targeted work to get children reading has the potential to have enormous impact. We know from our research that reading makes a difference to children's long-term potential - children who choose to read are happier, healthier and have more opportunities in life. Our programmes are valued by our partners and the families with whom they work, and help give children the best start. 

What would you like to see from the creative industries in the North of England?   

I’ve been lucky enough to spend almost all of my career so far working in literature and based in the North of England. There still aren’t necessarily enough opportunities to do that: while it might be beginning to change, so much of the infrastructure of the creative industries is still in the capital and it is very hard to avoid the drain of energy out of the region. There needs to be incentives for people to stay, or indeed come for the first time, and part of this is that the creative industries needs to continue to see the North as a place full of talent and opportunity. I’m pleased to say that BookTrust now has a team of twelve based out of our new Leeds office and that number is set to grow: we want to attract and retain the best people working in the sector in the North.

 

Can you tell us more about your outreach and networks in the North? 

We have an extraordinary network of coordinators based in each local authority, who all bring their particular expertise in libraries, early years and much more. Through them we can deliver our national programmes we and get a real understanding of the audiences that we are trying to reach. We also have very strong relationships with professional networks such as librarians, virtual schools and health practitioners; and dozens of local relationships driven by particular needs, with children’s centres, football clubs, family hubs and many more. We’re always looking for more partners though and are very open to working with new people.

 

Any projects in the works that you would like to tell us about?  

We have just appointed a new writer in residence, SF Said. Our writer in residence programme aims to provide a platform for writers and illustrators to explore issues that they are passionate about and to use their creativity to inspire more children to discover the joy of reading.

 

SF Said was appointed at the beginning of March and will use his residency to champion the importance of encouraging children to read whichever books they most enjoy – be that graphic novels, picture books, novels, short stories, poetry or non-fiction – and to follow any route into reading that makes them feel excited and inspired. His idea is that there is no real right and wrong way for children to engage with books and literature, but that every child can be a reader.

 

The themes of his work also align with BookTrust’s commitment to the future of representation in children’s books. We recently carried out some major research, ‘BookTrust Represents’, which found that there is a need for strong, continued efforts to improve representation in UK children’s literature: both in terms of the diversity of published creators, and in the diversity of stories, characters and experiences represented children’s books, given the impact this has on their desire and motivations to read. He’s an inspiring figure and we’re really looking forward to working with him.

 

 

To find out more about BookTrust visit www.booktrust.org.uk. Will Carr is Senior Partnership Manager for the North of England and can be emailed via queries@booktrust.org.uk.