Youth Voice Training

We offer training in embedding young people’s voice in your organisation through a number of courses which are co-delivered by an experienced trainer and a co-trainer with recent lived experience as a young person. These trainers bring expert knowledge whilst encouraging learning from each participant’s experiences.

 

All our training builds on our experience running Voice Magazine and directly engaging hundreds of young people as young journalists, trustees, ambassadors, cultural professionals and event organisers over the past 10 years. Meet a few of these young people.

We have delivered our training to over 300 participants already and constantly evolve to support the cultural and youth sectors.

 

Our work includes running the Nottingham Youth Cultural Partnership, a Local Enterprise Partnership’s Youth Adviory Board, Warwickshire’s Young Trustee Development programme, an Arts Council England funded media profile of England wide best practice in youth voice and our ever popular Voice Contributor programme

Our courses are designed for staff and young people to work together and include practical activities plus useful handouts and downloadable materials.

We have developed our training with thanks to support from the Social Investment Business and the Centre for Youth Impact, their support has enabled us to offer free online access to our courses: Introduction to Youth Voice and Introduction to Facilitation.

Young professionals in training


Our Courses

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Youth Voice Training

A 3-hour session, our training covers the What, Why and How of youth voice – exploring tools and ways to engage young people. We focus on building your confidence and supporting youth voice in your organisation. The training delivers on three main components: a theoretical framework, examples/case, and application in your own organisation.

This course is delivered on Zoom and is for professionals joined by their young people.

 

Book for 15th April 2025, 10am - 1pm

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Having A Voice In Your Organisation

A 2-3 hour workshop that explores the roles of young people having a voice in decision making at organisations. Perfect for those starting out on a Youth Advisory Board or similar type of forum. A mixture of discussion, activities and professional input ensures an engaging time focussed on each participant’s needs.

Professionals can join this session to support their young people. This course is available to be booked for groups of young people by emailing [email protected]

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Take an hour

Book an hour's consultancy slot with one of our team who can impart practical advice and guidance to get you going or growing with your youth voice programmes. Topics include:
Co-Creating at Board Level
Developing your strategy
Involving staff not usually engaging young people

All sessions include bespoke preparation, access to our online downloadable materials and discussions on a 1:1 basis or with up to 6 people for a facilitated disussion. These sessions are £120.

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Courses Available On Request

All our courses can be delivered in-house at your convenience. We also have additional modules and courses available including our own in-house bespoke programmes which explores developing and identifying your youth voice strategy and impact on youth voice.

Take a look at our summaries and for more information or to book, please contact us.


Why Attend Our Training

We offer years of practical experience (including running voicemag.uk) plus knowledge of participation theory and lots of examples of UK-wide practice. We bring in the voice of young people and expert experience.

We created the Arts Award Youth Network and have managed direct support for young people’s engagement and celebrating their achievement with Trinity College London for the past decade. We also created Amplify for England’s network of Bridge Organisations which showcases a diverse range of youth voice programmes.

We’ve had participants tell us: “More of this training is required across the whole arts and cultural sector! Should be mandatory for all arts organisations“. Our work is featured in this article from Arts Professional and our approach is outlined in a downloadable resource for Arts Award.

Our training delivers on three main components: a theoretical framework that underpins the work, examples/case studies to give you real life examples, and application in your own organisation. Your active participation in the conversation is built into the course structure, throughout our training.


Our Free Online Courses

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Introduction to Youth Voice

This course offers guidance on what youth voice is and some examples of projects – especially relevant to the arts, cultural and youth sectors in the UK. This is a helpful resource to try out before attending one of our Youth Voice training sessions.

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Introduction to Faciliation

A free online course designed to reveal key skills and methods for young people and young professionals to use when facilitating groups. This is especially helpful when facilitating meetings, running consultations with others, or to be aware of when participating in board sessions.


What Have People Thought Of Our Training

All comments are from our training courses with a diverse range of organisations covering libraries, music, dance, theatre, community arts and many more organisations. We work with local authorities, small businesses, NPO’s and grass roots organisations.

About our tickets

We’re trying to keep our training as affordable as possible whilst ensuring we can deliver the quality and experience everyone wants.

Our courses have a price for large organisations (with a turnover over £150,000) and a reduced rate for smaller organisations and freelancers (with a turnover under £150,000). If you need further support to attend financially please get in touch with us on [email protected]

We offer a discount on all courses when booked 1 month or more ahead of time. It is possible to change the name of an attendee at any time, and with notice will do our best to accommodate a change in course date for you too.

How to book?

Use the links above to public course dates.

If you want to book for in person training when it becomes available, please register your interest.

 

Contact us to book a bespoke course

All of our training courses are available to be booked as an ‘in-house’ programme; either for your own staff/young people, or as an offer to organisation’s that you support/partner with. Great for public CPD programmes, Local Cultural Education Partnerships or Local Authorities.

Bespoke training starts from £799 for a virtual course, with discounts for shorter sessions with a group of young people. Set-up a call to discuss your needs today by emailing [email protected]


Frequently Asked Questions

Our Youth Voice Training is for anyone overseeing or working with young people in their organisation, wanting to gain young people’s insights, or develop a new youth offer. Suitable for participation departments working in the arts, cultural or voluntary sectors. We encourage you to bring young people too- ideally an apprentice, intern, young trustee or someone already involved in helping to direct projects.

Our Having a Voice in your organisation course is aimed at young people attending with support of a worker.

As an attendee you should have some experience of young people’s projects and be keen to share and develop knowledge about embedding young people’s voice across your organisation. The same goes for young people attending a course, ideally they have some influence in your organisation.

You will find it helpful to have completed our free online Introduction to Youth Voice course and to have watched the episodes of interest on amplify-voice.uk

So you can embed young people’s voice in your work. Helping you to develop your audiences and plan programmes of work that meet the needs of your community. Here’s a few more points about our training that might help yo make the case to whoever says yes to booking your continual professional development activity:

  • Our training engages professionals and young people together in a shared learning experience
  • Our course is designed to be flexible around your needs and context
  • All our additional resources are available FREE for attendees to download
  • Our training enables organisations to take progressive steps to realising their youth engagement potential and prepare for a rapidly evolving youth-oriented future in arts and culture
  • We have delivered, profiled and supported youth engagement and youth voice throughout the coronavirus pandemic, and can help you to realise your maximum potential in the recovery phase
  • Participation helps organisations subject to Ofsted assessment to consider how to deliver high quality activity that meets the expectations of their students and provide a curriculum rich with cultural capital
  • Schools (and those wanting to work with schools) will understand better how to engage and address the needs of each pupil (Gatsby Benchmark 3) by supporting their voice
  • We can continue to help you afterwards through 1:1 support to develop your strategy or programme with our consultancy help

Terms of purchase:
1. No refunds can be made for no-shows and cancellations made less than 21 days before the date of training. The name of attendee(s) can change at any time.
2. Cancellations made 21 days or more before may receive a 50% refund upon request. The cancellation must be made & acknowledged in writing to [email protected] prior to this date. If you’ve not received an acknowledgement in time you may call us on 03300 881008.
3. Any young person attending training will be the responsibility of their accompanying adult. We suggest that they are aged 14-25; however you are welcome to inform us if you are bringing someone younger or older. We recommend that this young person is an apprentice in your organisation, an intern, volunteer or participant in engagement programmes with a role that can continue to work with you to develop youth voice within the organisation. Please respect the intentions of this programme and its funders by not booking a paid colleague (ie not on a training programme) for a young person’s ticket.
4. If we cancel the training day for any reason you will be informed by email at the earliest possible opportunity and a refund will be offered. If a suitable alternative date cannot be found for you we will still provide you with access to the online material.
5. All payments must be cleared at least 3 days before the training day. We can accept an official purchase order and payment of our invoice afterwards for recognised statutory authorities or organisations registered with the Charity Commission or Companies House.
6. Please be aware that we will only use your contact details to administer the course, your access to the online modules and directly relevant youth voice opportunities. You may be giving your details to our event booking partners to register which will then be passed to us. To continue receiving wider information about our work please register or subscribe to the newsletter on voicemag.uk.

 

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