What We Do

Individual Change

We work on an individual basis with young people who have dealt with childhood trauma.

Every young person’s journey is different and they will have specific support to help them on their personal and professional development.

Young people usually get in touch with us directly, through their networks, or are recommended through a range of public and community organisations. Youth workers work with young people on their strengths, skills and what they want to achieve through our Peer to Professional programme.

“The interpersonal skills I developed at Peer Power Youth proved invaluable. With their support I engaged with significant initiatives, including collaborating with the NHS Violence Reduction Programme to educate young people on life-saving skills in response to knife violence. These experiences honed my leadership skills and reinforced the power of young people being part of the decision-making process. I increased my confidence and used my lived experience and knowledge to showcase my passion for reducing crime and reoffending. These experiences and support, combined with the career advice and CV guidance I received, I was hired as a Product Manager at the Ministry of Justice (MOJ)!” - Tanvir, Young Partner

Peer to Professional programme

Peer to Professional is our employability-readiness programme providing workshops that develop young people’s skills such as communication, public speaking, and networking and increases their knowledge on areas such as financial literacy, and job applications to support them into education, training, or employment.

Depending on their interests, they also participate in different departments within the charity (i.e. having an interest in communications and working with the communications and marketing team on their strategy and wider duties).

Benefits for young people:

Food and transport to get to and from workshops and provided with a meal
Outdoor and community engagement activities to foster a sense of belonging
Chill n Skill sessions for young people to discover their interests such as music, art and culture and develop life skills such as cooking and budgeting
External professional therapy to learn coping mechanisms for stress and self-care practices to support their wellbeing.

Young Partners

This is how we describe young people who first join Peer Power Youth. They are 16-25 year olds and connect with us to improve services, amplify their voice and use their experience to create positive change for others.

Peer Leaders

Young Partners transition into Peer Leaders and take on the responsibility to help and guide other young people. They use the skills they have developed to facilitate training in justice and care services and other youth organisations, becoming ambassadors for the charity.

“Thanks to the Peer Power Youth, I have learnt the power of my voice. I have been encouraged to realise the value of my lived experience of mental health difficulties and, as a result, I have been able to pursue a career in mental health. Peer Power Youth has equipped me with skills which are crucial in my current role such as workshop facilitation. I was always reminded of my talents and strengths, growing my confidence immensely.” - Lucia, Young Partner

System Change

Our system change work involves influencing the design, commissioning, delivery, and evaluation of justice and care services for young people, ensuring approaches to delivery are driven by participation and empathy. We create system change through:

1. Young Partners and Peer Leaders deliver coaching and training sessions to the professionals working at these services on how they can build trusting relationships with young people. This ensures that services understand young people’s needs through trauma responsive approaches.

2. Young Partners and Peer leaders lead on co-designing and co-delivering our work to professionals on how services should work for young people. We help these professionals create relevant and effective processes, to enable young people to be part of the decision making.

“I was presented with the opportunity to host my own podcast at Bloomsbury Institute London talking about the political state of the country. My first political guest was Cllr Kathy Thompson and that’s when Bloomsbury noticed my potential. I was surprised and fortunate enough to get a Law Scholarship at Bloomsbury Institute and an unconditional offer to Buckingham University. I accepted and it’s been really good” - Rico, Young Partner

Recent System change highlights:

Collaboration with Peer Power Youth to shape the refresh of NHS England Health & Justice
Coordinated with Youth Justice Service to see how they can co-produce effective policy
We joined a number of All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) and consultations, providing recommendations to the Government and local services
Our Anti-Racism Equity and Equality work is embedded throughout our organisation and is in our agenda across meetings to ensure we meet our objectives
We provided evidence at the Public Services Committee inquiry and we were referenced in the Children’s Social Care Implementation Strategy Report
After co-producing the opening of a Secure School and working on its development, Young Partners visited during the opening

Storytelling is powerful. It enables connection and understanding between people who have lived very different experiences. However, power can be misused, and storytelling can also expose people to emotional harm.

Over two years, Peer Power Experts developed a Code of Ethics that lays out what they believe to be ‘ethical’ storytelling and they use this to help others to hear and share their stories safely. Storytelling Code of Ethics