Young Experts: using your experience to make a difference

Young Experts are care-experienced young people who use their experiences and ideas to help make services better for children and young people.

They work with the Participation Team to make sure young people’s voices are heard. This includes sharing their views with council staff, senior leaders, councillors and other people who make decisions.

What do Young Experts do?

Young Experts get involved in lots of different projects. This can include:

• helping with the Children in Care Council and Care Leavers Forum
• being part of interview panels to help recruit staff
• chairing Corporate Parenting Board meetings
• helping to improve information and services for young people
• creating young person-friendly leaflets, posters and videos
• delivering training
• sharing their views and experiences with people who make decisions

Young Experts have also helped to improve the Local Offer for care leavers. They have worked on making information clearer and easier to understand and helped create a booklet with the Care Leavers Forum.

They have worked with senior leaders to talk about what matters to young people and what could be better.

Young Experts also helped to create the Black Hair and Skin Care Guide. They used their own experiences to help improve support for Black and mixed-heritage children and young people.

Young Inspectors

Young Experts can also get involved in the Young Inspectors programme.

Young Inspectors visit supported accommodation and look at what it is like for the young people who live there. They look at things such as:

• how safe young people feel
• their relationships with staff
• support to become more independent
• whether young people feel listened to
• how they can raise concerns

Young Experts helped create the framework used for these visits. Their feedback helps providers understand what matters to young people and where things could be improved.

What can you get from being a Young Expert?

Being a Young Expert is also a chance to build your confidence, learn new skills and gain experience.

You could develop skills in:

• working as part of a team
• speaking up for yourself and others
• public speaking
• delivering training
• creating digital content
• working with professionals

Young Experts have had opportunities to speak at conferences, take part in national discussions and meet the Minister for Children and Families in Parliament.

Being a Young Expert is a way to turn your experiences into positive change and help make things better for other children and young people.