Join our Young Person's Group

the group up in 2017 and we now have 14 members. We are a group of 11-20 year olds. We all live in the local area around South Tyneside and Sunderland. We meet up every month.

Our meetings are not too serious. You will get to make new friends and help to improve how your local NHS cares for people your age. At each meeting, we have some food (pizza is the favourite option). We also get vouchers from time to time as a thank you for getting involved.

We want to make a real difference. We do this by giving feedback to the Trust about services.

We share our ideas about what would make NHS services better for children and young people. We give feedback on specific projects that the Trust would like our views on. We are there to make sure we give opinions from a child and young person’s perspective.

We will give you a portfolio file to build evidence of your work. This will help if you are applying for university or college. You can also show it to future employers. It means you can show examples of how you have helped shape NHS services for children and young people. We also get involved in research projects to give our views.

Why join our Young Person’s Group?

• Help make a difference to other children and young people.
• Build a portfolio of what you achieve.
• Work with nurses, doctors and other NHS staff while you develop projects.
• Learn more about how the NHS runs and future careers.
• Take part in key roles in the group. Learn how to chair a meeting, take notes or look after funds.
• Improve your own health with what you learn along the way.
• Chance to make new friends and have fun.

• Designed our own name, logo and webpage.
• Promotion for the group – launched the group nearly ten years ago.
• Chaplaincy – we gave feedback on cards and leaflets.
• ‘15 steps’ inspections – we took part in walk arounds of the Children’s wards. This was to give feedback from a young person’s point of view.
•  We helped to design the rooms in the Children’s Emergency department.
• We gave advice on how best to ask young people personal questions if they are in an emergency setting.
• We helped to raise awareness about alcohol and the damage it can do. We also helped to signpost young people to mental health support.
• We won an award in 2019 for the work we do and volunteering our time. This was from Sunderland City Council.
• We made a video against Child Exploitation. Please click here to view.

We raise money to help children and young people who are in hospital or having care in other settings. Our aim is to make their experience better. We have set up our own fund through the STS Charity to do this. This also covers the costs of running our Young Person’s Group.