Youth Voice Matters Conference 2025

On 20 February 2025, a number of our young people from the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Youth Council and the Girls' Forum attended the Youth Voice Matters Conference. Below is an article written by them, sharing their experiences of the day. 

Come with us to the seventh Youth Voice Matters Conference, organised by the National Children’s Bureau as part of the Department for Education funded national programme, ‘Making Participation Work’. This year the event was in Manchester and the theme of this year's event was strength and resilience.

The conference brings together disabled children and young people and those with special educational needs (SEN) from across England. It provides an opportunity to develop their participation skills and to recognise the impact the children and young people can have when taking part in strategic participation. Youth Voice Matters is a conference with a difference, and it's the thing we love the most about the conference - no adults are allowed to participate in the event unless they are supporting a young person directly. The day is also organised and led by young people. 

Something else we really liked is the 'traffic light system' that young people used at the event: some young people will be in their element at a busy and fast-moving event, and others will find it all a bit overwhelming. So everyone is given a green, orange, or red sticker on their badge to show their comfort level with being approached and spoken to. 

The event began with introductions, an icebreaker and the reveal of the ‘Pull Up a Chair’ blanket that is used to symbolise the 2,999 children excluded from school each day in the 2021/22 school year - the following year this increased to over 4,000 young people per day.

There were four workshops to participate in throughout the day. We took part in the ‘express yourself through rap’ workshop and the ‘children’s rights in sports’ workshop. The others were a ‘selfcare toolkit’ workshop and ‘kids helping others back to their best’ workshop. Other activities included a photobooth, a graffiti wall, creating social media content, and the activities included in the workbooks shared on the day.

To end the day, we were given an opportunity to share our views and shape research on co-production in local councils by the Department for Education. We used a 1 to 5 scaling method to tell them how we felt about the following statements and questions: 

• When young people work in co-production with local councils, it makes services better
• Do you think local councils do a good job in co-production? 
• Do you think working with local councils has a positive impact on young people's mental health?
• Do you think children and young people can learn new skills when you work in co-production?

Here's what we had to say about the event: 

“I thoroughly enjoyed the Youth Voice Matters Conference! It was my first time attending, and it was so amazing to see the event being led primarily by disabled and SEN young people as we were able to directly address key issues that are important to young people.”

“Something I thought was impactful was the ‘Pull Up a Chair’ blanket that is used to symbolise the 2,999 children that were suspended in the UK every day from schools in the 2021/22 academic year. For me, hearing the figure and seeing it represented are two different things. I was shocked at how big the blanket was - and was more shocked to find out in 2022/23, this number rose to over 4,000!”

“Attending the Youth Voice Matters Conference for the second year running, as a disabled young person, was great! Being able to connect with others who have similar experiences, sharing what matters to us and helping to create change is really important, and we felt empowered throughout the day.”

“I had such a good time at the conference! It was nice meeting people who were as passionate about making change as I am and having feelings validated that I hadn’t before. I especially enjoyed the rap workshop and performing with others.”

“I had a great time attending the Youth Voice Matters Conference, it was a fun and eye opening experience. I specifically enjoyed the workshop about disabilities in sports, and learnt a lot about how easy it is to include everyone in sport.”