Waltham Forest Young Advisors was set up in October 2007 by the London Borough of Waltham Forest. All Young Advisors are trained by the Young Advisors charity, normally on a series of two residential visits, however, Waltham Forest was the first Young Advisor scheme to take a five day long intensive training program. Not only that, but they were also the first scheme to receive an official qualification (from ASDAN) for their work. The second Waltham Forest team followed a similar training program based over two weekends in September 2009.
Waltham Forest Young Advisors consists of eighteen highly trained young people who were already very much engaged in the community. Because these young people were all recruited from different areas of work (childrens services, politics & local government, education and community engagement) Waltham Forest Young Advisors encompasses young people with a wealth of experience from different backgrounds.
Young Advisors from Waltham Forest took part in facilitating one of the series of "How to engage with young people" seminars run by Young Advisors and the DCLG in November 2007. More of our Young Advisors were invited to help put together the REACH report (DCLG), one of our Young Advisors even met Gordon Brown in December 2007, while another sits on the youth advisory panel for Hazel Blears (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government). Our Young Advisors have been involved in regional work around London - including running workshops in Croydon to support the local authoritiy's 'Participation day'. A select committee of Young Advisors were involved in setting up and running the I make a difference campaign with the Borough's Children's Commissioner, Ann Tennant. On a more local level, Young Advisors have been doing a lot of work for the local authority, from designing posters for competitions, compiling videos, hosting conferences for borough professionals and attending meetings.
Two of Waltham Forest's young advisors are on the board of directors for the National Young Advisors Charity, one of whom is the Charity's chair.
Young Advisors are mentored and co-ordinated by team leads, in Waltham Forest James Gould is the team lead, and council liason, working with Lisa Belletty who leads a lot of the council policy projects. Every Young Advisors scheme, while hosted by an agency (such as Connexions, borough councils, NDC designated areas, housing associations, etc) is an indepenant branch of the Young Advisors charity. This means that councils or other agencies cannot force opinions or ideas on Young Advisors, which is better for everyone!
The Young Advisors charity was set up in 2005 as part of the DCLG's youth engagement programme, with the success of four pilot projects, the charity began to expand in early 2007. Now there are over 450 Young Advisors nationally.