The Youth Voice Forum met for the first time last week to discuss mental health in the workplace. As collective of young people connected to Youth Employment Group members – this group is an important part of giving young people a voice on policy decisions surrounding Covid 19.
The Youth Voice Forum (YVF) is chaired by four young people within the founding organisations. Organisations that retain YEG membership are welcome to invite young people to participate in the YVF.
The purpose of the YVF is to create a safe space for young people to get together and discuss the views, experiences & challenges that they face as a direct result of Covid-19. Here they also support the work that the YEG do and have an active voice in influencing policy. The YVF ensures policy responses genuinely reflect young people’s needs and perspectives by providing young people with opportunities to identify what changes need to be made and discuss solutions to the problems they themselves have identified.
Youth Voice Forum
The first Youth Voice Forum meeting was chaired by one of the YVF co-chairs and our very own Josh Adcock from Youth Employment UK.
The session focused on Mental Health and the Workplace and opened up with an update from YEG chair and Youth Employment UK co-founder Laura-Jane Rawlings. Josh introduced Mental Health as a topic, discussing what it is, explored the difference between mental health issues and illness, provided information and resources of support available and looked at the benefits of being in a physical workplace.
We heard from guest speaker Lauren of YE2030 who talked about her youth led report and the impact of covid on young people – focusing on mental health. From this young people took the floor and opened up about their various experiences of mental health in the workplace, what employers were doing for them, what help and support was available, what employers and businesses needed to be thinking about, what doesn’t or hasn’t worked for them etc.
A few quotes from young people within the session were:
“I found this meeting very informative, some very interesting opinions on Mental Health in the work place specially how employers can help improve young people’s MH in the workplace”.
“Well done Josh Adcock for delivering the session, I found it insightful and appreciated the tips on maintaining mental health”
“I learnt so much about mental health at work and how we all can keep up a good mental health. Also not to take anyone for granted and use all people you trust and know to talk about it. Was so insightful and inspiring. Excited for next one”
If you want to find out more about joining the Youth Employment Group you can find out more and sign up here.
