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Guest blog: How do we know what young people want?

Published Wednesday 29 June 2022

In order for Services for Young People to provide the best support possible for our young people in Hertfordshire, we have to keep our finger on the pulse, knowing their current concerns, needs, and what's important in their lives.

We regularly survey Hertfordshire young people aged 11 - 17, and in winter 2021, we surveyed again, as a follow up to our previous 2019 questionnaire. As you can imagine, we were interested in understanding how the pandemic had affected our young peoples' thoughts and feelings.

7,276 young people completed our 'mainstream' survey, and 518 of those considered themselves to have a special educational need.

The results of the mainstream survey showed:

Main concerns/ topics of importance:

  • Black Lives Matter (BLM)
  • violence against girls and women
  • how some boys and men speak to and treat girls and young women

Thoughts about their future:

  • education, employment and careers
  • managing their money
  • worries about climate change
  • worries about safety on the streets and in the parks. 

Other issues:

  • being isolated
  • body image
  • gender identity
  • mental wellbeing

Our SEN survey

378 young people completed our SEN survey. We offered Youth Worker support in schools to explain the survey and help students to complete the survey.

The issues concerning young people with SEN vary somewhat from the results of the main survey:

2 friends on a video call

Friendships and relationships remain the most important factors in the respondents’ lives

Student feeling pressure of studyingWhereas fitness and health scored highly in the 2019 survey, this was overtaken by the pressures of school life, mental health and anxiety issues.

Girl sitting and looking sad

Bullying was mentioned in both the 2019 and 2021 surveys. Comments mentioned name calling, not having friends at school and being made to feel insecure.

Some similarities included:

an illustration of a hand shake

The number of young people who stated they did not have enough help with their issues more than doubled compared to the 2019 results. The main survey also showed a 12% increase of those who felt there was not enough support. Only 42% stated they had enough help with their issues, down from 55% in 2019.

Different coloured bank notes

Some similarities included concerns about what the future holds, what sort of education and training they could access and how they would cope financially – saying they ‘just want to be prepared’.

an illustration of an american football

Similarly to the main survey, young people expressed an interest in sporting activities (35% selected sports as the activity they attended the most) and attending clubs or groups at school / outside of school. There were many comments around the accessibility of some of these activities and needing support to attend them.

Next steps. What happens now as a result of the survey?

We use the results of the survey to develop 'local action plans'. These set out what support we should try to provide in each district and borough to respond to what young people have told us they want and need help with. So, for example, we may think about how we can provide more accessible sporting activities in the future, or ensure that more young people feel help is available when they need it.

Julie Dymond, SfYP Project Officer

By Julie Dymond

Services for Young People Project Officer

 

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