Youth Leadership at LIFEbeat
We believe that our young people are at the heart of our LIFEbeat community and that their voices and perspectives matter. Our youth community contribute to our governance, strategic direction and programme delivery. Our Youth Council members meet 5 times per year to discuss all aspects of our work, to feed into and influence the overall running and operations of LIFEbeat. Recent contributions have included consultation with the wider LIFEbeat youth community, informing policy and protocols around LGBTQ+ and neurodiversity needs and representation, developing more inclusive practice and training and increasing our organisational awareness around racism and unconscious bias. Our youth members are also advocates for LIFEbeat, speaking at many of our events and sharing their stories.
Graduate Staff: Many of our young people also return as youth leaders at our residential programmes, becoming mentors for other participants. Many of our current volunteers are previous youth beneficiaries, and youth alumni Chrystal Vidal and Phoebe Presneill are much valued within the organisation, with Chrystal as a LIFEbeat facilitator and Programme Lead and Phoebe Presneill is our current Project Manager for LIFEbeat.
Youth-Led Day: During our residential programs, the final day is a much-loved community favourite: Youth Led Day. This is one of the most essential ways that we give young people the opportunity to step into leadership, handing over camp management and facilitation to members of the youth community (supported by our staff teams where needed). Responsibilities include whole community facilitation, camp management, design and delivery of workshops and facilitating youth-led discussions.
Youth Consultation in Projects: LIFEbeat youth are also regularly invited to participate in youth-led films and to create public resources for other young people. Recent projects include a recently published Public Health Guide for Somerset secondary schools to promote happier and healthier school communities, a LIFEbeat youth-led consultation in Frome on the needs of local young people and the delivery of community art workshops in Yeovil.
How We Work
Naming the Issues
Naming the Issues
LIFEbeat hosts workshops and discussions, allowing youth leaders to talk about and debate the issues that they feel are most impacting their lives. Having heard from everyone and discussing the common themes, the young people settled on three topics that felt most important to them: identity, mental health and youth violence.
Leading Discussions With Peers
Leading Discussions With Peers
Once the topics had been chosen, LIFEbeat’s Young Leaders were then invited to host workshops and discussion sessions on these topics during our residential summer camp programmes. The workshops proved to be extremely popular, prompting rich discussions and giving our Young Leaders a chance to step up and hold space for their peers. More than 100 young people took part in these sessions.
Creating Resources
Creating Resources
To round off the programme, our Youth Leaders came together for a weekend residential in which they worked to create short films and presentations based on the wide range of discussions and responses to each topic, both from their own perspectives and from those of their peers. These films and presentations were screened for the first time during the LIFEbeat Community Fund evening in front of LIFEbeat community members and donors.