Time to Listen: Engaging Young People with Lived Experience of Harm

Time to Listen: Engaging Young People with Lived Experience of Harm is a space for reflection, learning and action.

This event will explores how we can create meaningful opportunities for participation for children and young people who have already experienced harm and trauma through violence and exploitation.

While many programmes include young people from affected communities, they don’t always reach those who have been directly impacted or who feel excluded from traditional engagement spaces. This event focuses the conversation on the importance of centering the voices of young people who have already experienced harm - not just those from affected communities, but those whose lives have already been impacted by violence and exploitation.

Attendees will:

• Hear from organisations who are running meaningful participation programmes and projects with young people impacted by violence and exploitation
• Listen directly to young people themselves, who will lead a closing session that they have shaped - from concept to delivery - sharing their perspectives, experiences and opinions.

We’ll ask:

• How do we engage these young people effectively and meaningfully?
• How do we listen in ways that feel safe, empowering and not tokenistic?

This event is one of two being held as part of Safer London’s Time to Listen campaign, which challenges the harmful perceptions that continue to harm young Londoners directly impacted by violence.