16 – 25 Trusted Connections Network
YouthBorders supporting Young Adults Emotional Health and Wellbeing through community-based youth work.
We have secured investment from the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for a new network officer Gemma Robertson who joined YouthBorders staff team last August 2022. Gemma has been busy supporting, engaging and connecting with a new 16-25 network to allow further collaboration and networking in the community-based youth work sector with a specific focus on organisations providing emotional health and wellbeing support to young adults aged 16-25 years.
“The aim of my role is to connect organisations and support collaboration and improvement for young people’s transition between child and adult services. There is a primary focus on support for emotional health and wellbeing, but secondary focuses will include employability, housing, and other key transitions.” Gemma
Since starting Gemma has met with 20 YouthBorders members in one-to-one sessions and 10 non-members – a total a total of 30 organisations.
The idea of the network meetings was to create a platform for organisations to have a voice, a place where they can discuss what needs to be improved at key transition points in the lives of the young people they support. An initial logic model was created to framework the project:
Gemma created a padlet which highlighted five emerging themes arising from the discussions with groups, this allowed us to plan network meetings for the rest of the year:
- February 2003 Launch of the first Trusted Connections 16-25 Network Meeting
- May 2023 - Theme – Employability and lived experienced – bringing young people and organisations together to discuss their experiences of the world of work and the challenges they face.
- June: Learning Exchange (theme employability) - a visit to the Usual place in Dumfries and Galloway to see an example of good practice.
- September: Mental health and wellbeing Mapping exercise and input from the NHS Healthy living network
- November: Employability, next steps and achieving change
The network meetings welcome over 20 people from managers, youth workers and volunteers, providing a platform for further collaboration between third sector and youth organisations. Bringing people together has allowed us to look forward and work on solutions that can support the challenges facing this age group and sector.
The network is a great opportunity to collaborate, so we are not working in silos and young people can move fluidly amongst the organisations which ensures they are getting the support they actually want and which they feel is right for them.
“The network has given me greater understanding of what is available”
“It was great to put names to faces after covid”
“The food by café recharge is always so amazing”
“I look forward to attending next month, I always come away with useful information”
The 16-25 network has allowed groups to come together can find a more powerful voice to push for change.
