As part of The Mighty Creatives’ role in leading the development of Youth Voice activity across Letchworth Garden City as part of the ‘Great Place to Grow Up’ project, TMC will be delivering a further Youth Voice training session.

About the Session

The content of the session has been informed by the initial consultation day that took part on Thursday 19^th September, and will continue to be informed by our stakeholder survey responses, as we want our training to be relevant, meaningful and respond to need.

The session has been co-developed and will be co-delivered by Emily York (our Head of Programmes) in partnership with two young people, Hannah Whitfield and Janah Smith (members of TMC’s Youth Board).

The session will cover:

• Youth Voice – A Young Person’s Perspective – Hannah and Janah will take us through their experiences of Youth Voice consultation and projects, with a specific look at what worked well for them (the do’s) and what proved to be the barriers (the don’ts).
• TMC’s Youth Voice Principles – To help us understand ‘best practice’, we will take you through TMC’s Youth Voice principles, of which have been created by our Youth Board. These will help contextualise the rest of the session.
• Degrees of Youth Voice – With these in mind, we will take a deeper look at Treseder’s Degrees of Participation Model, that looks at the different ways in which Youth Voice and participation can be approached. The aim of this is to simplify our approaches and not feel overwhelmed by lots of new proposed activity, but to see opportunities in current delivery methods.
• Youth Voice Opportunities – We will spend some time in groups, looking at current opportunities for small changes to our work, that could create a more inclusive and accessible space for Youth Voice and youth participation.

About the Speakers

Emily York is TMC’s Head of Programmes. Emily has been with the organisation for 5 years, and previously worked as a freelance Artistic Director as well as in numerous education settings across the East Midlands. Emily leads all of our programme areas at TMC, including our Youth Voice work, Youth Voice Network and Youth Board. She also leads on our Youth Voice consultancy, having been a lead consultant across at least 7 Youth Voice programmes across the last two years.

Hannah Whitfield is a member of TMC’s Youth Board. Hannah has been with the organisation for just over a year. Hannah is currently studying Inclusive Performance at Chickenshed Theatre in London. Hannah is committed to help amplify the voices of neurodivergent people and get their ideas and needs heard where it matters. Hannah is an Ambassador for over 20 charities. You can read more about Hannah’s story here.

Janah Smith is a member of TMC’s Youth Board. Janah has been with the organisation for nearly 4 years. Janah is currently in her final year studying Global Creative Industries. Janah is passionate about Youth Voice and Arts Education, having completed internships this year with Disney and Thames Festival Trust. You can read one of Janah’s guest blogs on our website here.

You can read more about our team here on our website.

Preparation and Pre-Reading

There is no strict pre-reading for this training session. However, if you want to get a head start, you can always do a bit of reading up on Treseder’s Degrees of Participation Model, of which you can find out more here, alongside other models of participation.

Apart from that…

All you need to do is attend the Microsoft Teams meeting with an open mind, ready to work alongside others in the room.

Please do bring along a smart phone to engage in some participatory activities, if you can, but if not, we will ensure you have other ways to feedback.

Slides will be shared and the session recorded (with people’s permission), but please do feel free to take notes when and where you need.