A massive congratulations to all of the finalists and winners of this year's National Young Advisors Awards which were celebrated on the evening of 30th July 2012.

Winner: Jenny Southern, Sefton Young Advisors
Jenny works tirelessly in Sefton, she;
Sits on Sefton’s Engagement and Consultation Panel making key decisions that affect the way that agencies engage with the community,
advised Sefton’s Youth Service as they went through a redesign following cuts, and took a lead on developing training for involving young people in meetings.

An award where Young Advisors can identify a project they have worked on which has made a real difference to the community!

First Place: Sheffield Young Advisors
Ran consultations with the Roma Slovak community to find out their barriers to education to help increase young people from this community getting GCSEs between A-C. They've taken community members on trips to win their trust which has been essential to carry out the work

Second Place: Waltham Forest Young Advisors
Ran a commission from the local Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service to destigmatize mental health problems, promote good mental health and consult with young people on the services they would like to see. Their research informed the development of lots of extra curricular classes for schools, better signposting, school visits to mental health services, training peer mentors and the scoping of a possible 'awareness month' for mental health

Third Place: Southwark Young Advisors
Since April 2010, Southwark YAs have run a project tackling crime, Anti – Social Behaviour and inequality. Achievements include 68 young people enrolled on the programme haven't committed Anti – Social Behaviour in 2 years, engaged over 2200 young people and signposted them to activities, peer mentored over 100 young people, secured £65,000 over the three years to support the project.

An award to recognise a partnership between a Young Advisor team and another organisation where working together has helped to achieve great things.

Winner: Dudley Young Advisors
Worked with National Health Service and Clinical Commisioning Group (CCG),
developed events to raise awareness and get young people interested in their health and well-being,
developed a form of effective patient consultation through practices and social media.

Winner: Portland & Weymouth Young Advisors
Picked up 5 really big commissions shortly after training from Synergy Housing, BSide and the Drop In to name just three. They've advised on sexual health services and ran training events for over 80 pharmacists and have helped invest £50k in community projects with Synergy Housing

Winner: Sarah Stevens from Sheffield Young Advisors
A quote from a Young Advisor from her team:
"Sarah Stevens, well what can we say? Sarah is an outstanding leader, a colleague and a friend who not only has the capacity to support and develop each and every one of the Young Advisor team (which totals 21 in all), she allows us the freedom to express our own views, opinions and to set our own path"

Winner: West Midlands (Telford and Shropshire) Young Advisors
Awarded to the nomination that demonstrated the most enterprising ideas throughout.

Winner: Niall Ledgard from Sefton Young Advisors
As we do every year, Young Advisors started their residential with designing their own YA t-shirts, and what better prize for the coolest Tee than... An Ice Cream Maker!