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.