My PAC Lead Residential Experience
28-30 July 2026 | Willersley Castle, Derbyshire
When I first heard that PAC Leads from across the country would be coming together for a three day residential, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I knew it would be an opportunity to meet other young people involved in the Peer Action Collective, share our experiences and think about the change we wanted to create, but I don’t think I realised just how much we would get out of those three days.
It was one thing knowing that PAC was a national project, but it was another to actually sit in a room with young people who were doing similar work in completely different parts of the country.
After arriving at Willersley Castle, we had time to settle in, explore the site and meet some of the other PAC Leads. It was one thing knowing that PAC was a national project, but it was another to actually sit in a room with young people who were doing similar work in completely different parts of the country. We started thinking about the residential through our ‘Hopes and Fears’ and discussed what we wanted to get out of the next few days and what we were perhaps nervous about. It was a good reminder that although everyone had come from different backgrounds and teams, we had a lot more in common than we initially realised. And, of course, there was plenty of time afterwards to actually get to know everyone outside of the sessions.
Day two became much more reflective. We started with a River of Life exercise, creating a visual representation of our collective PAC journey so far. It gave us an opportunity to think about everything that had happened up until that point, the challenges, achievements, things we’d learnt and moments that had shaped our work. We then got to step away from the more discussion based sessions for some of Willersley Castle’s adventure activities which offered a completely different way of building relationships. You can learn a lot about someone when you’re working together to complete a challenge, especially when you’re all trying to figure out what you’re supposed to be doing!
Later, each team created an interactive presentation showcasing what we had discovered through our research so far. This was particularly valuable because it allowed us to see how experiences differed across different communities while also identifying similarities. We also heard from the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) about how our work contributes to their wider work, which helped put our individual projects into a much bigger picture.
PAC isn’t just about conducting research and collecting information, it’s about taking what our peers tell us and using it to influence real change.
Another part of the residential was thinking about the future. Through the Vision for Change session, we were asked to create a visual representation of the change we wanted to make through PAC. We then shared these ideas with our peers before working towards creating a collective vision for change across the wider network. It was interesting to see how different everyone’s ideas were, but also how much they connected. PAC isn’t just about conducting research and collecting information, it’s about taking what our peers tell us and using it to influence real change. Being able to step back and ask, “What do we actually want to change?” made the work feel even more meaningful.
And then came the campfire. After a long day of working and creating, sitting around a campfire with everyone, listening to music, eating marshmallows and talking was probably one of the simplest parts of the residential, but also a memorable one. It was a chance to forget about presentations and research for a while and just be young people getting to know each other.
On our final morning focused on evaluation and social action. We met the Renaisi Evaluation Team to understand how PAC is evaluated, including taking part in a practical evaluation activity. Across our teams we then shifted to not just thinking about the problems we wanted to address, but exploring social action ideas that could help create the changes we were envisioning. Finally, we came together for a chance to reflect on the whole experience.
Looking back, the biggest thing I took away wasn’t one particular activity or session, it was the people. The residential brought together PAC Leads from different teams and different parts of the country, all working towards a similar goal. The experience showed me that the work we are doing locally is part of something much bigger. We had the opportunity to share our research, challenge each other’s ideas, learn from project partners and think about how our work could contribute to change on both a local and national level. But alongside all of that, we made friendships. We laughed, competed, struggled through activities, stayed up talking, shared experiences and learnt far more about each other than any Human Bingo sheet could have managed.
This residential felt like the point where we really started to understand what we could achieve together.
Three days might not sound like a long time, but when you’re surrounded by people who are passionate about making a difference, a lot can happen. I left Willersley Castle with a clearer idea of the change I want to contribute to, a better understanding of the work happening across the wider PAC network and, perhaps most importantly, a group of people I now know I can learn from and work alongside. This residential felt like the point where we really started to understand what we could achieve together.
Written by Aniqa, PAC Lead.
