ICB’s Youth Council heads into its second year

The ICB’s Youth Council has now begun its second year, gathering the voices of young people to help improve their experiences of using local services.

The youth council, made up of 12 to 19 year olds, has been offering an important  insight and providing valuable first hand insight into the needs and concerns of children, teenagers, and young people when it comes to healthcare issues.  In their first year the youth ambassadors contributed helpful insights into a number of projects and topics including working with the Patients Association to create eight short videos aimed at improving young people’s experiences at GP surgeries.   They also made suggestions on how the NHS could promote the NHS App to young people and worked with the ICB to produce a number of web pages for young people on the Healthier Together website, including one of the topic of vaping.

In its second year the youth council will build on this success, now supported by the Communications and Engagement team. It will be made up of some existing and some new members. As a thank you for their contributions and hard work, this year the youth ambassadors will each be given a £20 voucher for every meeting they attend.  They will next meet in early December when Hertfordshire County Council will outline how the Youth Council can offer their advice and insights to help develop its upcoming campaign to highlight and prevent young people taking up vaping, and also help them give up.

If you or a young person you know living in Hertfordshire and west Essex would like to help improve local services and become an ICB Youth Ambassador email Lauren Oldershaw or Heather Aylward in the Communications and Engagement team to find out more.