Vision

Young people living in an inclusive, equal and cohesive society that is founded upon the FRED human rights principles: Freedom, Respect, Equality and Dignity.

 Strategic Aims

IARS has identified strategic aims for future activities. These relate to the function and role of IARS as a youth-led charity working directly with young people and other youth organisations, groups and networks to help them deliver their charitable objects. These strategies help to determine the focus and desired outcomes of all IARS' project activities, and the emphasis of any future plans:

1. Empower and enable young people, particularly those from disadvantaged groups, to influence, shape and inform policy and practices in the areas of criminal justice, human rights, equality, restorative justice and alternative dispute resolution.

2. Provide youth-led policy and research support to the UK's Third Sector.

3. Work with government and statutory bodies (regionally, nationally and internationally) to ensure that youth issues and views of Third Sector organisations working on human rights, equality and restorative justice are represented and heard.

4. Pilot new ideas in order to demonstrate new youth-led models, opportunities and emerging good practice for the benefit of the UK's Third Sector working on human rights, equality, restorative justice and alternative dispute resolution.

5. Act as a network that enables young people to communicate with each other, work together and share best practice with the ultimate goal of influencing youth led policy and providing research support to the UK's Third Sector.

6. Build bridges between young people from different communities (BAME, LGBT, Refugee etc), and encourage them to find out what unites rather than divides them.

7. Engage disadvantaged young people at risk of exclusion into mainstream educational and skills development through tailored training and support programmes (e.g. human rights training, preventative programmes, citizenship and democracy courses).

Mission

 To be a youth-led organisation that will empower young people to take leadership and develop ownership over their lives and future, and champion, develop and support their peers and other youth-led groups and organisations to inform criminal justice, human rights and equality matters that affect them.

 IARS will achieve this through working with young people, particularly those from disadvantaged groups, the Third Sector, Government and national, regional and international organisations, carrying out research and by disseminating widely its findings to key decision makers.

Values

IARS is founded upon the four core human rights values that we aim to promote through our work: Freedom - Respect - Equality - Dignity.  IARS also values ethical innovation in dispute resolution that takes place inside or outside of a formal legal framework.

IARS is youth-led and believes in Youth Empowerment and Youth Leadership. Our networks are dedicated to IARS' vision. IARS is a charity and a company limited by guarantee.

IARS was originally set up by a group of young volunteers to develop social science research capacity through support for researchers in the early stages of their careers. IARS runs two networks: one with young people, and one with organisations mainly from the voluntary and community sector.