Youthful Minds

We are a voluntary participation group led by young people

Youthful Minds

Volunteers have a very important role to play in Mind Jersey’s Participation group, Youthful Minds. We are a led by children and young people, which means that our volunteers decide how the project will run. Our volunteers reflect a diverse cross section of the community here in Jersey we are trying to help.

The image featured below was taken by a youthful mind volunteer

Who are we?

Youthful Minds is a participation group of young people (aged between 11-25) volunteering for Mind Jersey. The group has been set up to ensure that Mind Jersey keeps children and young people in mind in pursuit of its vision. We aim to change public attitudes and reduce stigma and misunderstanding. It has been running since June 2015.

What we do

Youthful Minds therefore aims to tackle the stigma associated with children and young people’s mental health in Jersey. To achieve this Youthful Minds have created a campaign which is ongoing. We have worked alongside Mental Health Services and met with many professionals within the Mental Health services. We are able to give feedback to these professionals about what helps a young person with her mental health and hopefully through these meetings we can improve the services for other young people.

Lots of our work involves creative elements like making and designing leaflets, posters and presentations for a variety of different organisations and charities. We raise awareness of Mental Health problems by going into schools (primary and secondary) and also signpost young people to where they can go if they feel they need some extra support.

We would like to;

To raise awareness of Youthful minds and provide information of what we do
To have young people’s voices heard
Reduce stigma surrounding mental health problems

When do we meet?

We meet every Monday at 5pm-7pm at The Bridge. We do try to be as flexible as we can about the time we want from you so outside of the volunteer meetings there are a lot of different things to get involved in.

Why get involved?

We have found that Youthful Minds can

Increase your confidence and do something important that will make a difference.
Try something new, meet new people, enjoy yourself and have a laugh.
Attend training in equality and diversity, mental health awareness, communication skills
Improve your skills and develop experience to boost your CV.
Mind Jersey can provide you with written references for new jobs etc

The only requirement people need to join youthful minds is to have a passion about promoting mental health to other young people, parents, professionals and the wider community, and to be willing to have your voice heard.