Youth Participation Team
Services for young people provided by the youth participation team.
At the Youth Participation Team, it is our mission to ensure that the voice of young people is heard, ensuring they know their rights and the choices available to them.
We specialise in supporting young people who have been in care or have had experience of social services’ involvement, but will also provide opportunities around accreditation and the Youth Council, which is open to a wider youth audience.
Services offered by the Youth Participation Team
Advocacy support
An advocate is not part of social services, but will ensure that a young person’s voice is heard and acted upon by decision-makers with choices that affect their lives. If a young person is unhappy about a decision that has been made about their care, our advocacy service can help make a complaint.
Independent Visiting Service
Independent Visitors are volunteers who befriend and support children in care. They are specially selected and trained so that they are safe and appropriate for young people. They make a commitment for two years minimum and will visit their young person once every two weeks and take part in activities like day outings.
Youth Voice
Creating opportunities for all young people who have been in care to be involved in influencing, shaping, designing and contributing to the development of services and programmes for young people.
Programmes include:
Children in Care Council
Provides a safe space for young people with a shared experience of being in care to meet, socialise and give their views and opinions on all aspects of their engagement with social services.
Ask Report Change (ARC) Program
Training and accreditation to help assess children’s residential homes where young people live.
Young Ambassadors
Training and accrediting young people to sit on recruitment panels and interview new social workers.
Accreditation
The Youth Participation Team runs an accessible accreditation scheme, the Arts Award
Arts Award
The Youth Arts Award is a range of unique qualifications that supports anyone aged up to 25 to grow as artists and arts leaders, inspiring them to connect with and take part in the wider arts world through taking challenges in an art form - from fashion to digital art, pottery to poetry.
Youth Council
At the Youth Council, we ensure that young people are able to get their views recognised on serious issues that affect them. This includes running campaigns and being represented in the UK Youth Parliament and on local authority boards and committees, such as the Youth Cross Party Working Group and Children and Young People’s Skills Committee.
Who we work with
We work with children and young people who:
- are aged 5 to 25 and in care or a care leaver
- are up to the age of 25 and are not in education, employment, or training
- have a disability and is receiving shared care
- are young parents under 18
- are young unaccompanied asylum seekers
- are going to a family group conference or child protection conference
Contact us
If you are a young person who needs support please contact us on:
- 01273 295 510 or 07812 356994
- Or email youth@brighton-hove.gov.uk
You can find out more about us and how to refer a young person online at Youth Advocacy Project and to see the great work we have been doing, you can visit our Facebook page.