YMCA Trinity: Listening to young people

Back in 2023 YMCA Trinity was awarded a £5.1M Youth Investment Fund grant to secure the long-term future of its Cresset building and develop their youth service offer. The Cresset, based in Peterborough, works with up to 2,000 young people each year through its innovative performing arts programmes. They aim to increase this work and offer more opportunities to young people across the city. Alongside significant capital work, the funding enabled YMCA Trinity to develop a new programme of youth work, working with young people to create activities and opportunities for them to participate and gain skills, confidence, and learning.

Securing their future

The capital grant has enabled major improvements to The Cresset building, including replacing the roof and drainage; replacing the existing theatre seating; installing an accessible theatre dressing room; a stage lift to allow accessible performance opportunities and installing a new lighting rig and environmentally sustainable theatre lighting. Building work is nearly complete, with a special opening event planned in October 2025.

Listening to young people:
Informing YMCA Trinity and the National Youth Strategy

Young people are at the heart of YMCA Trinity, informing their youth work offer and making sure everything they do reflects young people’s needs and ideas. In April 2025, YMCA Trinity held a ‘Listening Event’ to make sure young people inform their work and had the opportunity to influence the Government’s National Youth Strategy. Their event was part of a larger plan of events organized by YMCA England & Wales to feed into the development of the strategy.

The Listening Event brought together YMCA Youth Cresset members, Local Councilors and members of the local authority, Peterborough Youth Council, Youth MPs, and youth workers and the wider staff team at YMCA Trinty and The Cresset.

Listening ambitions

The main aim of the listening event was to get young people from Bretton (Peterborough) who have been involved in YMCA Youth Cresset activities to speak on the issues that matter to them. They wanted to create space to discuss the experiences of young people locally and what they could do to improve the local area for them.

This event was very much at the start of the youth voice journey for most of the young people they encounter; giving them the opportunity to see that there are people that are willing to listen to and make changes on behalf of young people.

The Listening Event invited conversations around key themes and questions:

• Think of a time when your voice was listened to and by who.
• Post it note activity: young people were asked to vote on statements they agree with. Adult participants were asked to vote on statements they think were made by young people.
• Would you feel anxious if you went to school today?
• What would my dream school look like?
• How can young people use their voice?
• How can adults help young people? And how can they help young people learn about money?
• What would you do with more space for youth activities?

Young people’s reflections

Q: Think of a time when your voice was listened to and by who.

Comments ranged from family members listening to and encouraging young people to make decisions and take responsibility, to teachers trusting them as students to take on leadership roles.

Specific examples included:

• A sociology teacher who took the time to work with one person at college and eventually inspired them to continue into a charity career.
• A drama teacher gave someone the responsibility of teaching younger school members in extra-curricular classes.
• Younger family members asking them for advice.

Not being listened to:

• One person said he was not listened to as a young person, and this led him to a role that helped uplift young voices.
• One person said that they weren’t listened to at home but were listened to in sports committees and teams.

Activity Section

Young people were asked to vote on statements they agree with. Adult participants were asked to vote on statements they think were made by young people.

• Mostly, there was consensus on the things that young people voted on/agreed with. These were mostly things based around larger systemic anxieties.
• Many young people did not realise that the statements that they were voting on were made by other young people.
• The activity led to a conversation around adults thinking that young people want specific actions that relate only to their area, for example opening the local water park more regularly or fixing the zip-line. Young people said that it feels as if adults want to assign these beliefs to them, as they are easy to do and can provide a quick fix, but do not require the effort to address the overarching issues young people are facing.
• The ideas that most young people put forward were much larger and more conceptual ideas, such as mental health support, financial worries (both for themselves and their parents), and about having a space where they can feel safe.

Q: How can young people use their voice?

• In Scotland, 16-year-olds have the power to vote, but not in the rest of the UK.
• Opportunities are held by adults – they are the gatekeepers and need to open the door.
• Opportunities are led by overworked adults so they can’t always reach as many young people as needed.
• Better communication of opportunities for young people to use their voices.
• Young people are not engaged – online life fills the gap.

Q: What would my dream school look like? *

*This question was inspired by a prompt from the session’s previous activity that ‘school is like a prison’.

• Self-paced learning
• No pressure
• You can come and go as you want.
• The ability to focus on what subjects really interest you.

A specific example included:

• A school in Switzerland that lets young people pick the subjects they want to do, and they can stay as long or as little as they like at the school. These young people often stay for full days due to actually enjoying the environment that’s been created.

Q: Would you be anxious if you had to go to school today? (Asked to adults and young people not in traditional school environments)

The resounding answer was yes, I would feel anxious if I had to go to school today.

A young person who has always been homeschooled responded;

“Yes, I would feel anxious. I currently get to learn the subjects that I’m interested in as in depth as I want to learn them and am trusted with the responsibility of managing my education quite independently.”

Other things people said included:

• Not knowing things that young people are expected to know.
• Pressures of friends and fitting in.
• Worrying about fairness.
• Peer pressure for branded clothing and having to act a certain way.
• School structure is not good for mental health.
• Feeling overwhelmed.

Q: What would you do with more youth space?

• Youth workers said they would ask the young people how they want to use the space.
• Young people suggested having special sections of the space where we can have different activities e.g., a quiet space, video game space, reading space, space to run around.

Q: How can adults help young people?

• Teach them skills that can be applied to real life, for example cooking or managing money.
• Encourage them to try new things and let them fail.
• Trust them and give them responsibility.
• Adults should keep promises and if they can’t for any reason, they should communicate with young people about why and what the next steps or alternatives are.
• Provide a safe space where young people can be themselves.

Q: How can adults help young people learn about money?

• By modelling behaviors.
• By being open with them
• By trusting them to be mature enough to understand and take on board the knowledge.
• Giving them the responsibility to manage money for themselves.
• Giving them the freedom to fail at times and the tools to keep going.

Reflections from Youth MP, Danielle

“I found it really inspiring and unifying to see young people in Bretton expressing concerns over the same issues we do in PYC [Peterborough Youth Council], like worries about parents’ money and managing money itself, worries about the future, and mental health support.”

“I think it taught me, especially that we should strive to connect these communities with the council, we have great access to facilitate more conversations and spaces for action. But also, to connect with youth groups and invest in growing our youth voice network and community in Peterborough.”

“It was a great reminder that just the simple act of giving a young person a platform to share their opinions is vital in the youth voice, no matter the outcome.”

Putting learning into action

Every adult who participated in the session shared an actionable aim for continuing engagement with young people.

Actions included:

• The Cresset pledged to improve collaboration between The Cresset and YMCA Trinity.
• Peterborough Youth Council facilitator inviting members to youth council meetings.
• Councilors promised to return to YMCA Youth Cresset to engage with more of the youth members.
• Investigating how The Cresset can find more space for young people.
• Increasing youth voice opportunities and youth voice at YMCA Trinity and the Cresset.
• Taking the session’s reflections back to YMCA England & Wales and to events linking in with National Youth Strategy development.
• Exploring avenues for greater combined working between YMCA youth services and The Cresset performing arts.
• Feeding back to the Youth Council.
• Supporting, leading, and advocating for more youth provision across YMCA Trinity.
• Involving young people in the selection and interview process of future external youth session leads.
• Continue working with YouthWorx, amplifying and supporting organisations with youth voice projects that have real impact.