Who is the Young Person’s Advisory Group (YPAG)?

One of the most important parts of our project, is our Young People’s Advisory Group (YPAG). The group is made up of 12 young people who come from diverse backgrounds, ethnicities, and age groups. They all have lived experience of various long-term conditions (physical and/or mental), across different periods of time. Their insight is central in guiding aspects of this research project. For example, YPAG have helped us to pick the title of the project!

We asked the young people who attended our first online YPAG meeting for one word to describe how they felt about the research project and the information they had received at the meeting; this is what they said:

• Caring,
• creativity,
• organisation,
• reslilience,
• dedication,
• listening.

To help the research team pick a title, YPAG played a word association game. Group members identified key words including: 

• Commitment,
• investigating,
• health conditions,
• youth worker,
• experiences,
• dedicated,
• trusting relationship,
• young people.

Next, the group talked about what research is, and why it is important. The group thought about research in relation to youth workers and key information gathered was:  

• Build trusting relationships
• Youth work can be seen in history through ragged schools
• A sense of community
• Youth workers work with young people 11-25 

Information gathered by the groups helped to identify that research is needed to learn, answer questions and better our own knowledge and therefore our actions. Throughout the session all young people showed the skill of sharing information and listening to one another findings. 

YPAG also looked at our youth work services mapping survey to give their advice and suggestions. The suggestions from YPAG were brilliant and really helped the research team to think outside the box. Some of the questions that we have added in thanks to YPAG are: 

• Does the service have volunteers, if so, how many and what are their roles? 
• Does the service offer apprenticeships/work experience/young leaders? 
• How does the service gather feedback? Is there a youth forum or youth voice? 
• Is there ongoing support offered once the young person has left the health setting? 

Thank you YPAG!  

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