The sun is shining outside the Hollowford Centre in Derbyshire and I am joined by three YAs from Sheffield, Ellie (16), Phabian (17) and Emma (18) who have agreed to sit in the sun with me and talk about their experiences, so far, of being Young Advisors.

It's 15 minutes before dinner and the young people have a rare break in whats been an extremely busy few days. We are here in the Peak District to train 10 new YAs who will join the 10 existing YAs who have been working for their city, as Young Advisors, since April 2010. The 'older' YAs have been supporting their new team members and also taking additional courses from our Young Advisors Extra options. Its been an action packed residential, lots of learning mixed in with zip wiring, night hikes and team bonding!

The present Sheffield Young Advisor team trained just over a year ago, but in this short time they've worked in local schools, inspected sexual health services and represented the National Charity in our winning bid to become NCVYS' Young Partner of the Year.

So what do they have to say about their experiences of work as Young Advisors?

You’ve nearly been Young Advisors for a year now; tell us a bit about what you’ve been doing?

Ellie: Since we’ve completed our training we did a massive launch event in the Town Hall in Sheffield where we invited lots of important people, like Councilors, Managers of Children and Young Peoples Services etc, – we got loads of work from this

Phabian: We’ve worked with Head Teachers in Primary and Secondary Schools in Sheffield around a new model for Educational Services that are available in schools – after the cuts that have been made. We looked at what they should commission, based on what would benefit young people most in school. The Head teachers really seemed to value young people’s opinions.

So what were your main recommendations?

Phabian: The main one was careers from Year 9, or as early as possible, because you make your choices in year 9 for year 10. You are making decisions based on a guess of what you want to do but you don’t get guidance on what qualifications you need or what subjects you need to take. That was our main advice.

Ellie: There were also things about vulnerable young people needing support, not from loads of people and services, but from maybe one key person. That way a vulnerable person doesn’t have to deal with lots of people but would have one key worker. Services could be condensed, which would not only save money but those young people would be able to build a stronger rapport with their workers

Phabian: We were talking about that with the cuts, you can’t have all these different services coming in and helping people so instead you could have key individuals, give them the training that they need so that they are then able to give that young person the service that they need.

Do you feel that your recommendations were taken seriously?

Ellie: Yes, I really, really do. We got a lot of feedback back from the Head teachers. They said we were very mature and professional – which is of course what we are there to do – be professional

Phabian: Yeah, be professional, but with young people’s knowledge.

Ellie: Yes, especially me and Phabian because we were still in school at the time.

Do you feel that your advice is going to help young people who are coming up through school at the moment?

Ellie: Yeah, definitely, especially those who are starting now, as everything that’s happening is coming into place by September. We have also been asked to consult with other young people from across the city on how they want Educational services in Sheffield to be shaped, so we are busy organizing 7 community events, so that the consultations are localized.

Do you feel that any of the School’s that commissioned your advice will act on the recommendations that you gave them?

Ellie: Yes, my school has applied to become an academy now as they will get more money to have services in school, like sexual health advice.

Phabian: In Sheffield now they have shut down a secondary school, it wasn’t necessarily the best school and you’ve got a lot of children from this school going to Ellies’ school and mine. A lot of these children are from ethnic minorities and English isn’t necessarily their first language. Our schools have been working towards getting in people and more help so that they can make school more accessible for those people and for everybody.

So that was your Schools Project – but what else have you been up to as Young Advisors?

Ellie: Well we did a conference with Pharmacists and Sexual Health professionals all over the city to basically Youth proof them and make them [sexual health clinics] more welcoming for young people – because they can be quite intimidating places for some young people. We wanted to make them a bit friendlier - that went right well! We did mystery shopping before and after, when we went back afterwards everything had changed! Beforehand we called up and went along and asked questions, the responses we got weren’t exactly complimenting the service! But when we went back after our recommendations had been taken on board, everything was a lot better.

So do you feel that there is going to be a lasting improvement in those Sexual Health Clinics? Will you continue to inspect them?

Ellie: Well every time you go you inspect them!

Phabian: It’s not only that, our peers are other young people, if they have a bad experience and they can come to us and we can help sort it. Even as friends they can tell us about their experiences, whether it was bad or good – and hopefully it was really good!

We are joined by Emma, your fellow Young Advisor – Emma is there anything you want to add?

Emma: The main thing I’ve been doing is meeting with the manager from Aldine House which is a Young Offenders Institute*

Okay great, tell us about that!

Emma: Well we haven’t arranged work yet but we are looking to youth some of their strategies and their welcome booklet when young people come to the Unit. Young People either go to the unit when they are waiting to be sentenced; they’ve been sentenced or as emergency care if they tend to have disruptive behaviour. They have 8 or 9 beds and it’s a very structured day where they have assessments every two hours. They rate them on a point system, if they get so many points they get rewards like going shopping with a member of staff etc. So they have a welcome booklet when people come to make everything less daunting, so they want that Youth Proofing. They also want to Youth Proof some of their behavioural rules, because they want them to be more youth friendly, but they can’t let them be too friendly! They don’t want the young people to feel that the workers are their family and their friends and they can do whatever they want – there has to be boundaries there. So, we are talking with them about Youth Proofing that can also arranging some ASDAN training for enrichment for the young people.

Anything else that you’d like to tell us about?
Ellie: Phabian, Tabz and I have done our Youth Work qualification – we are now level one Youth Workers! So that’s really good!

Phabian: And now we are just waiting to do Level Two

Ellie: Or maybe just go to Level Three! We have also delivered two participation training sessions on the level 1 course and two sessions on the level 3 course.

Phabian: For me personally alongside that I’m doing my Level One Sport Leadership, I’m training to become a football coach as well. Its something I would like to incorporate into it.

So, do you enjoy being Young Advisors?

Ellie: Yeah, its great! I’d do it voluntary!

It is nice to get paid though?

Ellie: (laughs) yes it is! But we do the team meetings voluntary and I don’t mind that! I’m not really in it for the money!

Phabian: The thing is for us the majority of it is voluntary and it doesn’t bother me. The way I look at it is that it benefits me, it benefits my friends, its benefits services. For us as individuals it benefits us directly, it gives us something to do, somewhere to go, people to talk to.

Ellie: It looks good on your CV too!

Emma: For those who are less good at communication and who are quite shy and who shy away from things it gives them a way to talk to people and somewhere they can go where they can see people they wouldn’t see otherwise, people from all over the City.

So what’s the next step for Sheffield Young Advisors?

Phabian: Well we’ve just recruited 11 new Young Advisors which we are currently training as we speak now! They complete their training today on the residential at the same centre where we have our AGM! Now as Young Advisors we are going to mentor them…

Ellie: We are going to take on a mentoring role with them, to take a bit of weight off our lead Sarah.

Phabian: Sarah will lead but we will mentor. Now there is 20 of us in total. 20 young people for one lead to look after is a lot! When we’ve got commissions coming in and meetings to organise it’s a lot of work for Sarah! For us to help her and mentor the new Young Advisors it will take some weight off Sarah! She could actually do it by herself! She really could…

Ellie: She is actually Superwoman!

Emma: But that would be mean!

Phabian: It would actually be mean – she is always so busy as it is!