One year into our Youth Advisory Panel

We’ve now been working with the 13 young people on our Youth Advisory Panel for a whole year – how time flies! To mark this milestone, we asked members for their views on how they’ve found the experience so far. 

We’re currently embedding the Lundy Model of Youth Participation into our work. This model takes a children’s rights approach to participation and co-production and aims to ensure that young people enjoy the right to both express their views and have their views given due weight, in line with Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We structured our feedback around the four domains of the model: Space, Voice, Audience and Influence

You can read YAP members’ full feedback here, but some of the key reflections I took away were: 

• As a group, we’ve created a safe and inclusive space for young people to engage with Buttle:

The informal, non-judgemental environment of YAP meetings, along with supportive and attentive staff who actively remove barriers to participation, means that members feel our Panel is safe, welcoming and inclusive.

• Shared values and strong relationships are crucial to “voice”:

Shared group values and experiences of adversity mean that members feel able to share their experiences and views openly and honestly, without fear of judgement.

• Training and preparation takes time but is crucial for young people to meaningfully engage:

Over the last 12 months, we’ve spent a long time taking YAP members through how Buttle runs as a charity, how our grants work, our governance structure and fundraising approaches. This took time, but now means that YAP members have a deep understanding of who we are and what we do, which means they can engage with and challenge us across our work.

• In-person meetings are crucial for building a cohesive panel:

  While online meetings are useful, members really appreciate in-person meetings for better brainstorming, building relationships and creating cohesion across the group, leading to higher quality work and decision making.

• Young people value the diversity of backgrounds and experiences within the YAP:

  This was highlighted as a real strength of the group, with members enjoying working with others from different backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, and locations to themselves, and hearing the different ideas and viewpoints they bring as a result.

• We need to give clearer feedback on the “influence” the YAP is having:

  While members feel their views are taken seriously by staff and have influenced internal decisions, there was a strong desire for more regular updates and feedback on how their ideas are used, particularly from trustees. 

• Being involved in the YAP is making a real difference to members:

  Involvement in the YAP has positively impacted members’ mental health and wellbeing, social networks, interpersonal skills, employability skills, and fostered a sense of empowerment by turning adversity into opportunity.

All of this was really positive, and I was pleased to hear young people’s honest views on what we could do better as well as what they think is working well now. Their feedback brought home to me that we’re better at ensuring young people can express their views, than showing them that their views are given due weight by those of us at Buttle UK. Luckily, we have some clear suggestions from YAP members to help us improve this:

• We need to improve our communication about actions taken as a result of the YAP’s inputs, feedback and ideas
• We need to increase the YAP’s engagement with trustees and show that they value their insights and ideas
• We need to build more external-facing work into the YAP’s workplan so they can begin influencing how other organisations in the trusts and foundations sector engage with co-production
• We need to gather more regular feedback from YAP members on what’s working well, how we can ensure they feel their views are taken seriously and whether they know what impact their work is having within Buttle UK and beyond.

We’re looking forward to working with our Youth Advisory Panel in the second and final year of their term, where we want to start realising this vision of what co-production means to one of the YAP: