Introduction
The National Lottery (TNL) Community Fund approached Participation People to help strengthen how it listens to, values and acts on young people’s opinions when making decisions, by working with TNL’s Youth Voice teams.
The Youth Voice Teams are based around the UK in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Their role is to ensure that the opinions of young people in the area they represent are considered within decision-making for The National Lottery Community Funds works, which provides grants to organisations in the UK to help improve their communities.
TNL wanted to improve the experience of the Youth Voice Teams, help them to work together more easily, and grow their confidence and ability to influence senior change makers at decision-making committees, panels and strategy meetings.
Participation People set out to equip the Youth Voice teams to develop useful skills which would help them to collaborate better with the other regional teams, such as public speaking. These skills would help them to feel more secure in their roles, enabling them to have a greater influence on The National Lottery’s work, which could in turn positively impact their local communities.
Solution
Participation People collaborated with The National Lottery Community Fund to create a series of accredited training sessions focused on improving the Youth Voice Teams’ abilities, with Participation People leading the planning, facilitation and delivery.
Session one focused on exploring their skills, and attributes, enhancing communication, confidence and teamwork by getting to know one another better. Sessions two and three focused on public speaking and speaking with confidence alongside using the right communication channels to get their message across. Session four was dedicated to reflecting on what they had learnt, thinking about their next steps and putting learnings into practice.
Results
Each individual within the Youth Voice teams discovered and explored what it takes to think on their feet, make decisions and challenge the standard National Lottery Fund processes, helping the organisation to think differently, act differently, and put young people’s voices at the heart of decision making.
Key highlights that the Youth Voice teams went onto achieve include:
- Running staff learning sessions, attended by 60 staff members
- Training 422 staff with top tips on youth funding
- Presenting at committee meetings and making decisions at national panels
- Influencing over 40 other funders on how to involve young people through a government submission on ‘how to make social action more accessible’
- Shaping the new strategy for the National Lottery Community Fund
- Identifying three priority areas for new funding
- £10 million Mind Our Future funding plan designed and decided upon
Conclusion
The National Lottery’s Youth Voice teams were all passionate about creating a better future for young people. Through Participation People’s training programme, they were able to grow their skill set and confidence to take this passion and apply it to make real, lasting change, via The National Lottery Fund’s decision-making and strategy – putting young people at the heart of what they do now and for the future.
Testimonial
“We have loved working with PP this year with our current Youth Voice Teams across the UK. We chose Participation People over other applicants for their creativity in delivery and use of a variety of tools within sessions; as well as their quality evaluation methods using recognised wellbeing tools and their great Yearbook concept to document the young people’s work! Antonia and the team were always extremely accommodating and flexible in working with us, but above all, what I enjoyed was the co-designing of the sessions where they came up with innovative ways to achieve our objectives for each meeting based upon the needs and skills of the young people. I would recommend PP to work with for their approachability, professionalism and creativity”
- Joe Rich, Head of Youth Voice, The National Lottery