How can you meaningfully involve young people in your policy work?

About this event

Catch up on this event on our YouTube channel.

Policy affects young people’s lives and futures in many ways, so it is crucial that their experiences and views shape how policy is developed.  Yet we know there are often barriers to achieving this. This interactive event draws on the experience of the Health Foundation’s ‘Young People’s Future Health Inquiry’, which amplified the voices of young people to influence policies that will affect their future health. Over the last three years, this has included funding five posts to explore issues as wide ranging as the impact of inequalities, securing high-quality work, the long-term effects of economic insecurity and young people’s access to transport – all of which are building blocks for future health.  

In our Young people’s future health inquiry, young people participating found a clear link between their mental health and the emotional support they received from their families. They also recognised social and economic factors that shaped their family members’ capacity (or ‘bandwidth’) to offer support. Born out of the inquiry, the Health Foundation developed a programme – Emotional Support for Young People – that is helping to build the evidence base on what shapes the emotional support that young people experience, and the effect this has on their mental health outcomes.

NPC and the Health Foundation are hosting a panel event to share ideas and lessons from both programmes with the sector. The event will bring together policy organisations, young people and funders to discuss practical insights on how to involve young people in policy work, in ways that really work for organisations and for young people – and that make an impact.

The event is aimed at organisations wishing to engage young people in policy work. Although it will draw insight from projects focused on the building blocks of health, this event is relevant to all policy work affecting young people.

The event will be chaired by Jo Bibby, Director of Health at the Health Foundation and panellists will include:  

• Emma Rigby, CEO, Association for Young People’s Health (AYPH) 
• Nairn McDonald, Project Lead at Leaders Unlocked and our Youth Representative
• Toby Murray, Young People’s Future Health Inquiry post-holder representative
• Rushaa Hamid, Research Manager at Toynbee Hall, and Emotional Support for Young People Programme representative

Accessibility

We are actively working to improve the accessibility of our online and in-person events. As part of our commitment, for all online events we use live closed captions and upload the recordings to YouTube which has the capability to select subtitles. For in-person events we strive to use accessible venues. If you have any additional accessibility requirements that we can assist with, please email us at Events@thinkNPC.org.