Following the closure of YMCA George Williams College, we are pleased to announce that we have agreed a new home for the Centre for Youth Voice. This builds on the work of the College over the past two years, with funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, to establish the Centre for Youth Voice and engage a group of Youth Voice Ambassadors to work alongside.
Following a competitive process, the Network of Regional Youth Work Units will be taking on the Centre for Youth Voice and building on the work initiated by the team at the College. The Units will be working closely with the Youth Voice Ambassadors to help shape the next stage of the work and will continue to work closely with Bethia to ensure that the youth sector can continue to access a range of resources, data, and insight on young people’s voices.
Background Information
The Centre for Youth Voice draws together data, research, toolkits, and resources to create a comprehensive ‘blueprint’ for high-quality and impactful youth voice ‘practice’, which we define as the provision of support (i.e. space, skills, and time) for young people to express their voices and ideas, and action being taken based on what they say.
The Centre for Youth Voice works across all four nations of the UK. The Centre was founded in response to findings from earlier work at YMCA George Williams College and the Centre for Youth Impact:
- Inequity in young people’s access to high quality youth voice opportunities.
- A lack of clarity about what constitutes high quality youth voice practice, or how this can be measured/improved.
- No consensus on the potential impact of high-quality youth voice practice, particularly on organisations and systems.
- No common approach to measuring the impact of youth voice practice; and
- Limited integration of young people’s voices into evaluation and continuous quality improvement
Moving forward, we will be focusing on the four key aspects to this work:
- Youth Voice Observatory – This is an online, searchable repository of data and insight relating to youth voice. The Observatory was launched in 2024 with a first call for evidence, with the intention that this be repeated annually to ensure the repository includes up to date information. We will be relaunching the observatory and a range of training sessions and events to cascade out the resources.
- A youth voice reflection framework: this is a form of self-assessment tool but is intended for young people and adults to work through together, highlighting areas of strength in their shared practice, alongside areas for development. This will be piloted in September and then adapted and shared as part of the ongoing work of the Centre for Youth Voice
- An annual youth voice survey: this is a yearly data collection exercise to capture information on the nature and spread of youth voice practice, who’s involved (and who isn’t), and what young people are saying
- Engagement: creating a focal point and key set of resources supporting high-quality youth voice practice and insight and proactively sharing this across the sector. A resource hub will be further developed with training, blogs, guidance, and toolkits.
Bethia McNeil, outgoing Executive Director of YMCA George Williams College, said “we are so excited to see the Centre for Youth Voice move to a new home, where it can be embedded in the Units’ long-running work to listen and respond to the voices of young people. It’s been wonderful to connect the Youth Voice Ambassadors with the new stewards of the Centre for Youth Voice, and to step back knowing that the legacy and assets of the work will be protected and strengthened”.
Huda Young Ambassador, “I think it’s a really cool project – most youth projects focus on being ambassadors, but this one actually looks at how youth voice is practised and evaluated, which is something we really need and haven’t seen done before. I think we have a real chance at implementing positive change. 2. I’d like to see us young people involved in projects from the start and actively co-creating projects together and involved in every step of the process and also being able to see differences we make to help empower young people. 3. I’m looking forward to helping create tools like the youth observatory hub; getting to code parts of it was actually really useful, so I’d like to see how it grows and how other projects like that help more young people and information on us used in decision-making”
Hannah Young Ambassador “I want to continue to be involved in CYV because I think it is an important way to have the voice of young people heard and I’m interested to see which direction this new home for the CYV will take the group in. I hope young people will continue to be at the heart of the CYV and that experiences for all and improved access to non-formal education provisions will be championed and inclusive to everyone”
Joe Rich, Head of Youth Voice “The ambition for Centre for Youth Voice has always been to remain an independent resource for all to access to understand what and how young people are telling us what they need. The new home will provide this along with new opportunities for exploring new ways of listening. We are excited to be working with the Regional Youth Work Units on this and want to thank YMCA George Williams College and Young Ambassadors for all their commitment and hard work to get it to this point.”
Bethia McNeil YMCA
Sharon Long Long and Matthew Walsham on Behalf of the The Network of Regional Youth Work Units