The BIG takeover week! Young Londoners answered our big business challenges

During October half term, ten young Londoners aged 12 to 18, joined us for our first young champion VIP big takeover week!

It was an opportunity for the Safer London VIPs alongside other young Londoners to get stuck in and lead discussions on our big business challenges through a series of sessions, lots of brainstorming and creativity.

Outcomes from the week included young Londoners wanting to see the creation of a new digital youth hub to support new and existing service users, in addition to the creation of a youth proof charter allowing us to make our resources more youth friendly.

These ideas came to life through a variety of means including a ‘Dragon’s Den’ style pitch to our team, which allowed the VIPs to give their voice and opinion to our current recruitment and induction plans. The young Londoners also let their imaginations soar, with the creation of some great designs, including empathy profiles. Check them out below, aren’t they amazing!?

For Safer London this week was an opportunity to prepare the young Londoners for their role as young champions.

Carly, Safer London Head of Development said: “We are laying the foundations of a young Londoners movement within Safer London by investing time, money, and energy into young Londoners. We are working with them to create sustainable methods of embedding youth voice across the organisation and creating a whole range of methods for them to share their voices, express their views, and influence how the organisation works.

As a starting point to embracing this level of youth voice into an organisation like Safer London, we think it’s about showing young Londoners we care about them, and we care about what they have to say. Some important elements of this are about making sure young Londoner’s time and expertise is appropriately valued and renumerated, and we respond to this with care, compassion, and consideration. We need to show them that we are acting on what they say.”

Over the course of the week we kept track of actions, for both Safer London and the VIPs. To make sure we hold ourselves accountable and act on what they say, we’re bringing the VIPs and the Safer London team back together in early 2023, to check up on the actions decided at the takeover week.

This will all be supported by youth voice and participation experts Participation People, who facilitated the workshops, and put on an incredible takeover week for the VIPs and young Londoners. A massive thank you to them!

We can’t wait to see what happens next!

If you, or someone you know wants to make a difference, gain new skills, and make new friends, then become a Safer London VIP today. Join the movement and have your say on the things that matter.