YOUTHSOCIAL.CO.UK

Welcome to Youth Social

By increasing knowledge capital in teens and young adults, we can enhance outcomes across education, employment, health, self-development, personal enrichment, and civic engagement.

Over our first year we have developed a range of direct and indirect engagement activities that have identified & overcome the barriers that young people face, developed digital skills and produced informative peer-led resources. Between September 2023 and August 2024 we benefited 178 teens and young adults directly and 1,435 indirectly.

We have shown with our into-work projects that the acquisition of digital skills can significantly boost an individual’s knowledge capital - and when this is used to create resources such as podcasts that can inform people indirectly - we have created a unique model for improving the lives of young people.

To deliver this and to maximise the reach of our services we have built a network of local and regional partners who share our passion for supporting teens and young adults. From education and into-work providers to those involved in health and wellbeing, arts and culture, care and corporate parenting, we have reached out and been welcomed with open arms. But this hasn’t been all one way – we have been active partners and sought to share our knowledge, contacts and signpost whenever possible.

Our real success has been in the difference we have made to the lives of young people. We set modest targets in year one knowing that we only have minimal resources. Now as our reach and reputation grows we are embarking on a journey to create Destination - an information and opportunities webapp that will further increase the knowledge capital of teens and young adults.

If you would like to know more, or would like to partner with us on youth-benefiting projects please get in touch using the contact form below.

Destination - Information & Opportunities Webapp

In September 2025 we will be launching an information & opportunities web app for young people. This will be more than an online directory it will contain content that will promote health & wellbeing information, apprenticeship & volunteering vacancies and listings for beneficial activities/events (e.g. arts and culture activities)

All the content on the site will be co-produced by young people in pop-up workshops and creative & digital skills hubs that we will be running in youth settings across the area. We are currently working with Kirklees College Health & Social Care students to create a suite of health and wellbeing resources.

We have been supported with funding from Locala, The National Lottery, YPIP, One Community and the ASDA Foundation.

What The Friday Youth Podcast

Over the summer of 2024 we established the ‘What The Friday Youth Podcast’

We recruited a group of six young volunteers from across Huddersfield and Halifax (in association with Creative Steps) and they formed an editorial panel that decided the content they felt young people care about and need to know more about. We now have an active group of nine youth volunteers who research, host and edit the episodes,

Using our innovative creative co=production model we have recorded a total of twenty episodes ranging from advice on mental health, boosting confidence, careers and fast-fashion.

As well as being hosted by the young people, episodes also feature experts who provide facts, essential information and valuable insight. All the content is presented in a relatable and engaging way, ensuring it resonates with young listeners.

You can list to the episodes here:
Apple http://tiny.cc/i0xszz
Spotify: http://tiny.cc/m0xszz

Recent projects

Increasing the number of young people engaging in arts organisations

We received funding from Arts Council England to understand why young people are often reluctant to engage with arts and culture activities.

We ran two focus groups with arts organisations to understand the obstacles that they face in engaging young people and using this as a basis, we set up three pop-up creative agencies in colleges across Kirklees & Calderdale.

These agencies worked with 39 young people (the majority of whom were non-creative) and provided participants with a ‘creative experience’ that included researching the reasons young people don’t engage, identifying the reasons young people would want to be involved in arts activities and co-creating material they would positively respond to.

This project also offered the opportunity for organisations to hear first-hand the views of young people by participating in sessions and/or to attending a project dissemination webinar where all the findings were discussed.

The webinar is available to watch in the resources section below.

Outputs:

11 key findings
15 arts and culture organisations took part
39 young people aged 16/17 participated directly
303 young people participated indirectly by completing an online survey

Into-work
Creative Experience
Podcast Project.

Care experienced young people who are economically inactive were supported to undertake a number of creative tasks that developed a range of employability and life skills in order to provide a foundation from which they can get into employment or return to education.

Each task formed the basis of an answer to a podcast interview that participants took part in and this was edited to become an audio CV that could be used to accompany job applications and include on CVs.

Outputs:
Content was uploaded to YouTube as an unlisted file so that the link could be shared in and that participants would have control over who they sent it to.

In total, five of the young people created an audio CV

Care-Experienced
Young People
Podcast Project.

Funded by National Lottery Community Grants, and working with Kirklees Council and Calderdale Council Care teams we recruited a group of young people with experience of care to create a series of six podcasts that shared positive lived-experience stories – such as overcoming obstacles in their lives.

These podcasts were not only a mechanism for developing a range of employability and life skills, but they are also a lasting resource to inspire other young people in care and a useful reference for those involved in shaping the delivery of in-care services.

Outputs:
Six self-contained podcast episodes that are part of the Youth Social podcast channel. We also produced a dissemination webinar and final report.

You can listen to the podcasts here:
Josh P:
Apple: http://tiny.cc/8rzrzz
Spotify: http://tiny.cc/w6zrzz

Sophie:
Apple: http://tiny.cc/x6zrzz
Spotify: http://tiny.cc/z6zrzz

Matt:
Apple: http://tiny.cc/27zrzz
Spotify: http://tiny.cc/37zrzz

Odette:
Apple: http://tiny.cc/57zrzz
Spotify: http://tiny.cc/67zrzz

Josh H:
Apple: http://tiny.cc/77zrzz
Spotify: http://tiny.cc/d7zrzz

Louis:
Apple: http://tiny.cc/h7zrzz
Spotify: http://tiny.cc/j7zrzz

Youth Volunteering Podcast Project.

We were commissioned to produce a series of podcasts promoting the benefits of youth volunteering.

Working with over 20 teens and young adults, we produced seven podcasts that explored What is youth volunteering, how can it help with education & employment and where do you find available opportunities.

You can listen to the podcasts here:
Apple http://tiny.cc/5mrwxz
Spotify: http://tiny.cc/cmrwxz

Watch a video of the webinar below in the Useful Resources section:

Youth Democracy
Project.

For our first self-commissioned project we worked with Calderdale Council, Elland Town Development Board and a group of students at Brooksbank Sixth Form in Elland.

The project sought to establish a youth council that could represent the issues of young people in the town. The group will be supported to set up a body that will input into the local Town Board via the Youth Workstream.

Prior to the General Election, the youth council undertook a survey of young residents to identify the key issues affecting them and these findings were addressed in a special podcast aimed at local and national public representatives.

Outputs:
A survey was undertaken that received over 130 responses and a podcast episode was recorded that was released prior to election day.
The results of the survey were also presented are the Elland Town Development Board meeting.

Into-work podcast project

We were successful in gaining a Groundwork Community Grant to work with 14 young people to develop podcast content for the What The Friday podcast.

14 young people were signed up to the project and a range of podcasts were produced – many of which have addressed participants specific barriers in getting into employment.

Outputs:
Ten podcasts interviews were recorded on subjects including: work experience, inclusive recruitment processes, apprenticeships, self employment and volunteering.

You can listen to the podcasts here:
Apple http://tiny.cc/i0xszz
Spotify: http://tiny.cc/m0xszz