A group of Career Connect youth ambassadors taking part in a skills exercise led by Youth Participation Co-ordinator Alicia Murray. They are in lively conversation.

Our participants help us to create services that make a real difference.

Our commitment to Participant Voice

We aim to bring our participants’ experience and perspectives into the heart of what we do, every day.

We are committed to making participation accessible and inclusive. We aim to create a sense of ownership and empowerment.

We’re always looking for new ways to develop participation opportunities for the adults and young people that use our services.

Our participant voice work with adults in the justice sector is growing, with activities including focus groups and work with peer mentors. Our research has also included interviews with participants in the justice system.

We follow the Lundy Model in all of our participant voice work. We also self-assess our work against the National Youth Agency’s Hear By Right framework. Our Youth Voice work is aligned with Article 12 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

We believe that everybody at Career Connect has a role to play in embedding participant voice.

View our research

A yellow post-it note on a wall with handwritten text: "How do we create safe an inclusive spaces for service users?"

The Lundy Model of Participation

Find out more

The Lundy Model helps us to support meaningful participation. It focuses on four key elements:

Space

Voice

Audience

Influence

This means:

We aim to give people safe spaces to express their views in a way that suits them.

We aim to create different opportunities/channels for people to share their views.

Our staff are committed to actively listening to people’s views.

We share the views, ideas and feedback we have gathered with Career Connect managers, leadership and stakeholders for their response.

We aim to keep participants informed on where their feedback has gone, how it is being used, and any changes made as a result.

We do this with the aim of giving people a genuine impact on decision-making processes.

Youth Voice

We have made significant progress in our Youth Voice work. This includes:

Our Youth Agreement

Designed with young people, and in reference to Article 12 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Read our Youth Agreement

Our Youth Ambassador Programme

More than 25 young people have become ambassadors. As well as helping us improve our services, they have also built their CVs.

Learn more

three young women and a young man sat talking and smiling on the steps outside a building

Want to get involved in our participant voice work? Get in touch with us!

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