Kerry….

I initially got involved because over the summer I met some of my favourite people on this planet and I knew that if we all did the additional projects together, I’d get to see them a lot… for free. I’ve volunteered for Young Action Wiltshire for years anyway, so it wasn’t like I was signing up for something I knew I’d hate – I was just initially doing it for the people I’d get to be around. That being said, after I was told what we, as a group of Young Listeners would be doing, I was really excited about it. We had to go through hours of training in safeguarding; we have to be able to alter how we handle groups of young people based on their age and situation; and we learnt how to just generally talk to people in order to carry a conversation and harvest the information we need to feedback to HealthWatch.

 

Before ever carrying out a listening I was sceptical at the impact it would make on people. I questioned the ideas behind having young people talk to young people because I didn’t personally know how or think it would benefit anyone. This was until we actually started the listenings and I got into it. A young person is talking to someone of a similar age to them – give or take a few years – and it’s clearly so much more unintimidating than a young person talking to someone with a clipboard and a monocle. The people I’ve listened to have certified this in the things they’ve said or how they’ve said them. An 11 year old girl wrote me a note saying, ‘thank you for helping me with my bullying, you are all so kind and helpful’, and an 18 year old I was talking to switched from barely saying anything to essentially vomiting his strong views on mental healthcare to me.

A lot of the skills we have picked up I believe to be truly valuable to later in life. I can’t speak for all the Young Listeners, but I know that for myself, I feel a lot more confident when talking to groups of people and I know how to conduct myself around different age groups.

Charlie’s Story….

 

So I joined the Young Listener Programme starting out of completing NCS in the summer of 2015. I remember reading the application and immediately filling it out and posting it within days of getting my certificates because it was another step forward to help the local community as well as socialising with new people, which isn’t what I would normally do day to day. (Ha ha ha).

Any who, we obliviously had to do training before we went off into the big big world of Devizes and Swindon to accompany HealthWatch Wiltshire on their mission to find out what young people think of their local healthcare facilities. This is to then to be reported back to HealthWatch UK to actually resolve any issues we, the bestest young listeners in the entire world, had come across whilst listening to young people.

To me doing this project was actually a step outside the classroom; at Sixth Form, we are encouraged to complete a Senior Diploma at the end of Year 13. I decided not to follow the ‘usual line up’ of mentoring and helping out the school such a way that gives me school pride and all that jazz, but I wanted to help out the wider community and give people a voice that may not necessarily be heard from direct health professionals, who probably won’t give them the time of day to fortify any changes that wouldn’t entirely benefit themselves and their profession.

I think that this project has done that with the age gap that considers a ‘young person’. Also, being a young person and asking another what their opinion is can actually give better results than if an adult were to ask a young person, from my experience young people were able to connect with myself better than if asked by an adult. This then can suggest that young people who do projects like this aren’t your stereotypical ‘young people’ since the majority probably would want to get involved with projects like this but aren’t as agreeable to do this voluntarily like some. (#YoungListenerFam lol ^*^)

I’ve really enjoyed this project as it does benefit me outside the classroom but no one else from my school does this, so it’s also a new discovery for them by me telling them all about what I do with The Community First Community Organisers, Youth Action Wiltshire and HealthWatch Wiltshire and how the training has made me aware of possible situations that could happen throughout my life,  not just on listenings.