Youth Voice
What do we do?
Youth Voice is for young people aged 16 – 25 living in Newcastle
upon Tyne who have experienced homelessness or housing issues.
It’s a chance for young people to have their say about things
that matter to them, learn new skills, meet new people and have
fun!
There are lots of opportunities to get involved:
- Peer Education – young people felt that they
would have benefited from more available information in schools
about services and support that is available to young people.
From this, programmes have been developed to meet this need and are
delivered as part of PHSE in secondary schools and Pupil Referral
Units.
- Youth Independence Forum – this was set up and
is facilitated by young people who are supported by accommodation
services in Newcastle. The aim of the forum is to create an
opportunity where young people can speak to decision makers in the
city to ensure that their voices are heard and they can make a
difference. This meeting is held monthly.
- Code of Conduct – young people felt that the
services they accessed affected how they were treated by that
service. They developed a quality framework for services that
support young people who have a housing need, and, annually, they
inspect these services and support them to improve on areas which
are important to young people.
- Drop in sessions - a weekly opportunity to
meet up with other young people, chat, eat and have some fun!
- Volunteering - all young people who work
with Youth Voice have the opportunity to be registered as
volunteers.
- Positive activities – we support young people
to plan activities that they would like to take part in.
- Interviewing and inducting new staff – due to
the experiences of the young people we support, they are part of a
group of young people who make up an interview panel and take part
in the interviewing and inducting of new staff in Children’s
Services. They are also part of the interview panel for the
Young People’s Service.
- Workshops and events - we are often
asked to present our work to other services and attend events to
discuss what we do.
- Campaigning for change – young people use the
systems and services we work in, so they are experts in these
experiences, because of this they are able to identify improvements
and we support them to do this.
- Awards and celebrations – young people can
gain accreditation for the work they do with Youth Voice from the
Youth Achievement Awards. We support the celebration of all
young people’s achievements and have responsibility for arranging
annual events for all of the young people who are supported by the
Young People’s Service.
How do we do it?
We use a variety of methods to engage the young people,
including forums, drop ins, group work, fun activities and one to
one sessions. We used tried and tested models of
participation.
The referral criteria
Just their age!
We expect support from their workers to engage them in our work,
and they can take part in any of it or all of it, the choice is
their’s.
Each week we have available a list of what’s on and just need to
be informed by a worker that the young person is attending or is
keen to attend.
We can also arrange a one to one session with a young person
prior to attending if it is felt they would benefit from this.
To contact the Youth Voice team call 0191 277 1190.
Contact us
for more information.
Youth Voice annual report