Michelle and Youth Engagement

Michelle, our Youth Engagement Lead, spoke to us about her role, what she’s been up to this year, and what youth engagement means to her. With young people at the heart of hyh’s mission, it’s so important for Michelle to ensure that we involve them in as many aspects of our work as possible. In a nutshell, nobody knows better about issues facing young people and how to solve them, than young people themselves.

‘’They get something out of it, and we get something out of it’’ says Michelle.

Michelle’s role is multi-faceted. Her day-to-day is varied and her role develops with her as she discovers new insights from young people. One of her projects this year was working with young people from the Future Roots home in Welwyn, to gain some feedback on what it’s like living in the house. This will help us make improvements, but also when going forward and making long-term plans for potentially a second Future Roots home.

The role includes liaising with youth councils and student groups. When meeting with Welwyn and Hatfield Youth Council, Michelle found they can hold very strong opinions and were able to be honest with us (sometimes brutally!) about how we can improve as an organization. We received some helpful feedback on how we use our feedback forms for service users. We learnt it was perhaps too long and outdated. This practical feedback will be paramount in helping us improve moving forward.

Michelle also worked with a group to develop our LGBTQ+ safe space logo, which now proudly features on our website. Youth Engagement at hyh can very much be seen as a win-win, and these discussions even help us just to put our name out there.

Longer term, there are exciting plans for youth engagement events such as the Youth Summit in February at the University of Hertfordshire. Michelle is also working with HR to organise hosting work experience students and apprenticeships. With this youth voice being around on a more regular basis, we believe youth engagement can become truly sewn into the fabric of how hyh runs.

There is also a ‘takeover day’ in the works, where young people will be asked to work ‘Dragons Den’ style to suggest ways to improve our charity.

Going forward, Michelle hopes to make these projects a regular occurrence. Once the hard work of planning it for the first time is done, we can repeat them year after year! In some ways, Michelle’s job will never be finished- what young people find engaging and relevant is constantly changing. But this only makes the role all the more crucial. We are a youth charity, and while we think we know, we need to make sure we ask young people what they want and need.