Our Story: Behind Flip The Script CIC

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Director & Co-Founder

" Planting seeds of growth & resilience. Watering young minds to empower them to use their past to take control of their future " 

Hey!

I'm Lÿlas, one half of Flip The Script. I'm 26, Mixed Palestinian 🇵🇸  & Caribbean 🇸🇽 and have always been loud, proud and vocal against injustice and oppression... even if it got  me arrested! 

I was a child who slowly went down a path that felt like the only path meant for me when friends, family, relationships, knife crime, poverty and everything in between go tin the way. I was always a 'bad breed' and labelled a 'troublemaker' or 'challenging' from primary school days. I wasn't even born in the UK! 

I slowly believed the labels and fulfilled my prophecy as a young offender, exactly as most people expected... Except ONE.

I was mentored in secondary school just before being excluded and very quickly put onto lots of intervention schemes while recovering from a second stabbing, only to be excluded anyways. However, one key theme were these mentors; Mike, The Promise Foundation, Mr Campbell, Romero & even my YOT worker Nicole. 

These were the people that felt and expressed the caring emotions towards me and asked the WHY. This happened often enough that it caused a key turning point in my life when failing half my GCSEs, excluded from school, not allowed in any more PRUs. 

They pushed me- wrote me emails and letters advocating for my character, for my passion, my drive BEFORE the storm, BEFORE I became a victim turned survivor of SYV, CCE, CSE, Knife Crime, Domestic Abuse, Grooming and lots of other things where I was simply, a misunderstood, misjudged vulnerable child who wanted love, belonging & care but sought it from the most dangerous places.  

I was supported into college and though much of this followed me - I spoke up. No I didn't snitch I didn't start to move different... I spoke up about my truths. I shared my Why's before anyone had a chance to dismiss them. I validated my experiences before anyone had a chance to ignore them. My college bought me a sense of independence, accountability but most importantly; GENUINE support, passion and care for my wellbeing and development AS A CHILD.  

From then, I finished A levels with Performing Arts, Film and Sociology at {I don't even remember 100%} BBB or ABB.  Got pushed to go to university and do social work by my careers advisor and NOT take the gap year I was eager to take {I Know I NEVER would have gone back to education!} and applied to my UCAS 5. After essays, interviews and lots of offers; at the criminal record stage ALL were suddenly withdrawn but one - They asked for my WHY, for context, for my story. This was the University for me. After a LONG supported 5 and half year battle, I graduated with Honours! 

I worked in a number of roles throughout with a total of 10 years of youth work, 8 years in Social work {4 of those Post Qualifying}, Gangs, Violence and Exploitation along with Youth Justice including Feltham YOI. I saw how corrupt and broken the systems around me were and the exact system's I was warned I would end up spending my life in- or the so-called systems built to protect me from harm. 

Instead- I found MY WHY, my talent, my drive, my passion and determination for JUSTICE, for SOCIAL CHANGE, SYSTEMIC CHANGE and for REAL REPRESENTATION in the spaces that are allegedly built to support us.    

Anyways, I am the Talker and the ADHD-er between us two so I hope you enjoyed my story time!

I am Resilient. I am Powerful. I am Unapologetic & Deserving of GREATNESS. 

Director & Co-Founder

" When Words Fail, Music Speaks" 

I'm Kyra, also known as Kxdence. I'm the other half of Flip The Script with the Bob Marley mix, ready to Flip The System 🫡.

I'm not going to act like I know what it's like to be a young person today - your world is different from the one I grew up in, BUT - I do remember what it felt like to be misunderstood. To have adults judge my reactions and behaviour instead of asking what was really going on. To feel like my story didn't matter because it didn't fit the script people expected.

Here's what I learned: we're all walking around with stories we've been told we can't rewrite. That we're "too much" or "not enough." That our experiences don't count unless someone in authority validates them. That's far from the truth. 

You have the power to write your own narrative. Not the one your school expects, or your family assumes, or society prescribes. Yours.

That's what this CIC is about - creating space where young people can flip the script on their own terms. Where being misunderstood isn't a dead end, it's the beginning of something real. 

What happens when the "troublemaker" and the "misunderstood" stop accepting the scripts they've been handed?

They build something new.

We created Flip The Script because we've both lived the same truth from different angles: the system was never built for us, it was built to manage us. Somewhere along the way, we stopped accepting that.

Here's what we know that the textbooks won't tell you:
You aren't "challenging" - the adults around you are challenged by their own inability to ask the right questions. Labels like "at-risk" and "hard to reach" are just fancy ways of saying "we've given up trying to understand."
 

When the people meant to protect you are the same ones boxing you in? That's not support. That's survival.

 The Real Why

We started Flip The Script because someone showed up for us when they didn't have to. Not with pity. Not with judgment. With curiosity. With the audacity to ask WHY instead of slapping on another label and moving on.

Those people - the mentors, the youth workers, the ones who saw potential before or through the storm - they planted seeds nobody else cares to. They watered them even when everyone said it was pointless. They advocated for character when the world only saw chaos.

That- it  changed everything.

BUT- here's the thing that keeps us up at night: most young people never get that.
They get interventions instead of conversations. They get acronyms (SYV, CCE, CSE) instead of understanding. They get managed instead of seen. We’ve been these young people.

We've worked inside these systems - youth work, social work, gang intervention, youth justice. We've seen the corruption, the bureaucracy, the way vulnerable young people become case files instead of humans. We've watched young people who just needed someone to ask "what’s really going on?” get criminalised, excluded, and written off.

Enough.

What We're Actually Doing

Flip The Script isn't another intervention program. It's not about "fixing" young people or making them more palatable for systems that were never designed with them in mind.

It's about radical validation. About creating space where young people get to name their own experiences before anyone else defines them. Where being vulnerable isn't weakness - it's power. Where the question isn't "what's wrong with you?" but "what happened, and what do you need?"

We're here to disrupt the narrative that says your past determines your future.
To challenge systems that profit from your failure. To create REAL representation in spaces that claim to serve you but rarely include you.

Because here's what we learned: When you validate your own story, nobody can weaponise it against you. When you understand your WHY, you stop living everyone else's prophecy. When you find people who water your seeds instead of trampling them? You grow in ways nobody thought possible.

This Is For...

Every young person told they're "too much" or "not enough."
Every kid seeking love and belonging in dangerous places because safe ones don't feel accessible.
 

Every teenager whose behaviour gets judged while their pain gets ignored.
Every young person navigating systems designed to fail them.
Every future change-maker currently labeled a troublemaker.

You're not broken. The system is.

And together? We're going to flip it.