Through our Young Advisors Project, we have developed a set of guiding principles which outline our commitment to how we embed meaningful and inclusive youth voice in our work.
Our Youth Voice Charter sets out our commitment to embedding meaningful and inclusive youth voice across everything we do. It ensures our work is shaped by young people’s needs and priorities—keeping us authentic, relevant, and accountable.
Establishes The Diana Award’s commitment to ensuring that youth voice is at the centre of our work and provides a set of principles we can hold ourselves accountable to.
Ensures our work will use the same consistent and inclusive youth participation framework. As our work continues to evolve, this charter will ensure our work is always underpinned by youth voice.
The charter will serve as a tool to aid us in tracking our successes, challenges and learnings when it comes to embedding youth voice and participation.
Explore our Youth Voice Charter resources below — each one includes practical tips for putting the principles into action, along with real case studies showing how we've worked with our Young Advisors to strengthen youth voice across The Diana Award.
Over the past three years, we have worked in partnership with a group of Young Advisors to help us improve our youth voice and participation practices. In Year 1, our Young Advisors conducted research to identify areas for improvement when it came to embedding youth voice in our work. In year 2 Young Advisors collaborated with staff on projects to help put these improvements into practice. Through these collaborations, we were able to:
In our final year of the project, we gathered all our insights from the project and held workshops with staff and young people to form, test and finalise our charter.
Name: Beatrix
Bio: Hi, my name is Beatrix. I am incredibly excited about starting the role of a Young Advisor. I am a young forest school leader and have worked with youth organisations local to me.
Name: Arthur
Bio: My name is Arthur, I’m 16 and from Cardiff. I have been a Young Advisor since the start of the project, and it has been a fantastic opportunity to champion youth voice within the Diana Award and beyond.
Name: Sanah
Bio: I am excited to be part of The Diana Award’s Young Advisors project, having worked extensively in the youth, voluntary, and social action sectors over a number of years.
Name: Elsa
Bio: The Diana Award were the first organisation to help me believe that my voice mattered and I was capable of helping to create change, so it is a huge honour to be able to continue working with them as a young advisor for year 3 of the youth voice project.
Name: Gracie
Bio: My name is Gracie and I am a 17 year old, aspiring medical student, studying A-Levels in Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and English Literature.
Name: Harman
Bio: The Young Advisors project is special to me as I could continue working with a charity that I’ve been involved with since I was 12 and reflect on my experiences in youth voice and social action.
Name: Theo
Bio: I am very proud to have been a young advisor for the past 2 years and cannot wait to see what the next year of the project holds!
Name: Jade
Bio: I am passionate about youth voice because I truly believe that we cannot do a best for young people, if we do not talk to young people.
Name: Aaliyah
Bio: Hi, I'm Aaliyah, hailing from Birmingham, and I'm passionate about making a real difference for young people.
Name: Cody
Bio: Hi! My name is Cody Jackson - I am 15 years old and live in a wonderful city called Milton Keynes
Name: Mitch
Bio: I am overjoyed to be joining this project because I am a great believer in the power of young people to change the world.
We couldn’t do what we do without the support of our sponsors.
Elsa first connected with The Diana Award at an Anti-Bullying Week event in 2015. Inspired, she began advocating against bullying in school and online. Recognising her passion, The Diana Award invited her for work experience and later to join the Anti-Bullying Youth Board.
Arthur first connected with The Diana Award at 14, when he applied to join the Young Advisors project. Already active in youth voice spaces, he recognised this opportunity offered something different: genuine participation and meaningful responsibility.
Our Young Advisor, Aaliyah, writes about the importance of sharing decision making and power with young people and the benefits this can have for an organisation. Aaliyah also reflects on moments she has felt truly included in decision making and the impact that this has had on her own development.
The Diana Award recently launched our first Youth Insights Report, focused on Youth Voice in Politics. To ensure youth involvement from the ground up, we involved Peer Researchers throughout the process to help connect us with the stories and experiences of young people. Follow Peer Researchers Gracie and Arthur, as they journey towards improving levels of youth engagement in politics and discuss the power of young people as facilitators, analysts, and champions for change.
The second Young Advisor residential was a fantastic chance to evaluate recommendations to increase the levels of youth voice and participation, build activities that are meaningful to young people and celebrate the way in which young people are at the heart of The Diana Award.
The Diana Award hosted the first residential with the Young Advisors, part of our Future Forward Partnership with Young People, funded by The National Lottery Community Fund. Continue reading for more details on what exciting things these amazing young people got up to!
