It’s widely thought that today’s youth are disenfranchised and disinterested. The riots of 2011 showed us the destructive power of a generation on the fringe of society. Headlines from August 2011 screamed that teenagers lack hope, feel let down by society and feel that they’ve got nothing to lose.
For young people who aren’t in full time education, opportunities to further their skills and develop a sense of citizenship are few and far between. The Observer on Sunday reported in June 2014 that job prospects for low-skilled young people will continue to deteriorate at an alarming rate unless radical, innovative action is taken.
Housing and care and support providers like Home Group support some of the UK’s most marginalised young people, and it’s therefore our responsibility to work with them to give them a voice, a community and a sense of belonging. Involving our young service users, in particular helping them change, shape and influence the business and the service they receive, is a powerful way to help disengaged young people feel part of something. This way they can use their previous experiences and actions as insight to make positive changes, rather than worry that their past will be an anchor around their necks.
Home Group’s youth panel, Youth Action, has been running since February 2013. The group is made up of young customers and clients aged 16-25 who want to share their experiences and influence Home Group’s decisions. We found that young people often felt intimidated by our national panels, in part due to the formality of the sessions which are led by our older customers and clients, but also due to other barriers such as difficulty travelling to the meetings.
To solve this problem, we launched a pilot scheme to take the panel to them, starting in Maidstone and eventually moving to London as members’ confidence grew. The panel feeds into Home Group’s national customer and client panels to bring their issues and ideas to our board and executive team – this includes challenging policies, processes and communications and reviewing Home Group’s services.
Colleagues at all levels, from front line staff our executive directors and chief executive, have attended meetings, and as an organisation Home Group has really embraced this new way of working with young customers and clients. All directorates across Home Group are encouraged to submit questions to the monthly “ask the panel” sessions, and as a result the members of Youth Action have been able to feed into policies on a range of issues including support practice and safeguarding children and young people.
Since Youth Action was launched we’ve involved around 300 young clients, and they’ve gone from strength to strength. They have acted as researchers, editors and contributors for Home Group’s client magazine, delivered involvement training to staff, spoken at conferences and even attended the Youth Homeless Parliament with the hope of influencing government policy.
The Youth Action pilot has been so successful that we’re now hoping to launch the scheme nationally. On 26 March, Home Group colleagues throughout the UK will be running their own Youth Action meetings. We’ll all be following the same agenda, and we’ll all be inviting local young clients who might not get involved with Home Group otherwise. If this event, which we’re calling Nationwide Youth Action, is a success, we hope colleagues will carry on hosting regular meetings in their area. If we can achieve this, everyone will benefit – not just the clients themselves but colleagues and the business as a whole.
From being under represented, young customers and clients are now leading some areas of involvement at Home Group. They are an inspiration to many of us and their influence grows daily. All they needed to achieve this was a space to voice their thoughts and the knowledge that we would listen to what they have to say.
By Sophie Cox is involvement advisor at Home Group
