A diverse mix of young people.

Trains and supports young volunteers to have honest insight-gathering conversations with other young people.

Semi structured, gathering some demographic data and using a conversation guide with open questions to help the conversation flow.

Previously training has included safeguarding, communication skills, unconscious bias, data protection, equality, diversity and disability awareness. This was delivered in partnership with Chatterbox youth disability group and an organisation called Worth-It for positive mental health and wellness.

Training was accredited, and the Young Listeners could complete certified online training from Health Education England and Healthwatch England.  They also received wellbeing training from WorthIt and a volunteer expert in nutrition and fitness, to ensure their own resilience and wellbeing, and were all DBS checked.

Budget would depend on the scope of your project, but this approach benefits from a skilled youth support worker, has training costs, travel expenses for the Young Listeners plus refreshments for planning/reporting sessions and requires support for recruitment, analysis and reporting.

The Healthwatch Dorset Young Listeners project ran for ten months. We employed a part-time youth worker to support the project and the Young Listeners each took part in approximately eight hours of training, plus two all day sessions to plan the project, and bi-weekly catch ups online. They organised 70 conversations in one-to-ones and groups between them, and input approximately four hours each to analyse and write up the report and present their findings.