Putting young people at the heart of our services is something that NE Youth is incredibly passionate about and now we have been recognised for the quality of our work in this area by achieving Hear By Right Active Level accreditation from the National Youth Agency.
Hear by Right is an organisational development tool that was established over 10 years ago. Built on a framework of seven standards with 20 indicators it describes best practice, supporting organisations to plan, develop and evaluate their participation practices and provision before then being externally assessed. In order to achieve the standard, we had to demonstrate young people’s participation across 7 areas of our organisation:
- Shared values
- Strategies
- Structures
- Systems
- Staff
- Skills and knowledge
- Style of leadership
Gemma Lockyer Turnbull, Deputy CEO, said: “Achieving this accreditation is the culmination of a huge amount of hard work across the staff team at all levels and in all areas. Our commitment to listening to the voices of young people is clear and we are also passionate about providing opportunities for young people to have their voices heard by decision makers external to our organisation. Achieving Hear By Right Active Level does not mean our development in this area will stop, on the contrary, we will continue to strive to continually develop and grow our opportunities for young people to be able to have their voices heard on services and the issues that are important to them.”
