In her first Youth Voice Update blog of 2023, our Youth Voice Coordinator Evie Chambers shares the updates on our work with young people and priorities for 2023.
Evie Chambers is Career Connect’s Youth Voice Coordinator
Hi everyone. It’s been a busy couple of months.
Since my October update, we’ve appointed 12 Youth Ambassadors to help shape the way we deliver our services to young people. We’ve held focus groups in Liverpool and Manchester, and we’ve been reviewing feedback from our local district programme participants to help us improve the way we do things.
Career Connect Youth Ambassadors
Having interviewed young people across Liverpool, Wirral and Manchester, we can announce that we have now selected 12 young people to join us at Career Connect as part of our Youth Ambassador programme.
One of our Youth Ambassadors attended our Board meeting and presented their views on the help young people need when making decisions about their futures. Three Ambassadors attended a meet & greet event in Sefton and talked to local councillors, commissioners and key influencers in youth career services about their experience of being NEET. We can’t wait to see how their support can help the charity to develop.
Thank you to everyone who applied or recommended young people for the Youth Ambassador programme.
Our Ambassadors give vital feedback on the services we offer to young people through focus groups, ‘mystery shopper’ exercises and by meeting with our key decision makers.
Meet our new team of Young Ambassadors HERE.
Manchester & Liverpool Focus Groups
I travelled to Manchester to talk to young people about the service we provide and discuss any changes we could make.
What you said… |
What we did… |
| “Sometimes, it can be hard to talk to our
advisor, if we’re in a public space.” |
Our advisors will check where is best
for you to have a meeting, so you can feel comfortable talking to us. |
| “It would be good to have more
representation of Muslim people on the social media pages.” |
We’ve added a wider range of young
people in our Manchester Twitter header and local case studies. |
I also spoke to young people from Liverpool city region about their local service. We are
currently working on delivering changes, based on suggestions they have made.
Career Connect Impact Report
Our recent Impact Report features some fantastic stories about the people we’ve helped in the past year. Check out the report by clicking HERE.
We love to celebrate the success of the young people we’ve supported. So, if you’ve accessed one of our services and want to share your story, contact Evie Chambers via the details below.
Wirral European Social Fund
Our Wirral team has been working with many young people to provide support in their career needs in areas such as writing applications, structuring CV’s and preparing for interviews.
As part of this service, young people fill out a feedback form about how they found the service and how supportive their advisor was.
100% of young people surveyed ranked our advisors 4 out of 5 and 5 out of 5 on how supportive and welcoming they were.
Comments from young people included:
- “I feel I can talk to my mentor as he listened to me and helped me to understand my options – now I know where I am going.”
- “I came in not sure what to do but my advisor helped me a lot and I know what I need to do.”
If you live on the Wirral and would like to access this support, contact Career Connect Wirral via [email protected] or telephone 0151 556 2620.
Connect To Your Future (Greater Manchester)
We are constantly working with young people on our Connect To Your Future programme via focus groups, feedback forms and 1:1 feedback sessions. Recent feedback has led to the improvement of our documents and Action Plan, to better suit the needs of young people. We have also created a monthly planner.
Connect To Your Future is also creating a Youth Charter with the help of young people on the programme. Keep an eye out for updates in our forthcoming Connect To Your Future newsletter.
St Helens Renewal Community Fund
Our St Helens team has been working super hard to support young people in their careers. We gathered feedback from those we’ve supported, to find out what they like about the service and whether we can improve it.
Comments from young people included:
- “I was always made to feel very welcome.”
- “10/10 the experience helped me become more open to job opportunities.”
- “I am completely satisfied with this project because it is solely due to the career advice from my advisor that I now know what I would like to do with my life in terms of my education and employment.”
93% of young people on the programme rated our advisors 10/10 for helping them create a plan to achieve their goals.
89% rated our advisors as 10/10 for their advice on education, employment and training opportunities in their area, and for listening to them.
Priorities for 2023
We are looking forward to developing our Youth Ambassadors through training and skills to further enhance the service we offer to young people. We are looking into improving our social media channels to include more inspiring stories and images of the young people that we support.
We’ll be telling young people about how their voice has affected the services we provide, so they can clearly see the difference they are making. We also want to get more young people in front of key decision makers, to ensure their voices are heard by those in the community who are in a position to make changes.
How can you help?
We’d love to hear from young people to find out what they feel is important to them in getting their career moving and how they think we can make our services better.
Do you have an idea, feedback or suggestion for us? To share your views and find out how you can get involved in our Youth Voice work, please email [email protected].
Follow @connectmycareer on Facebook and Twitter and Follow us on TikTok: @careerconnectuk
