“Hello and welcome to ‘Young Voices Heard’, a movement promoting greater youth engagement and participation in public life and democracy, supporting young people to be changemakers, leaders, advisors, trustees, designers, entrepreneurs, writers, volunteers, campaigners and elected representatives We have been operating since 2017 as a not-for-profit campaign
and youth participation support service (see portfolio of past activities) and in 2020 we will be launching a new Social Enterprise to enable us to operate sustainably as well as to facilitate more investment in the next wave of the youth-voice movement, through better reporting of news, recognition of success, research and the sharing of good practice. Watch out for two new projects ‘Youth Voice Now’ and ‘Youth Voice Network’.
To fund these developments, we offer a range of support services to organisations, trustees, directors, elected representatives and the media, who want to introduce, manage, review or benchmark their work with young people – all to recognised national standards, as well as continued access to youth participation specialist James Cathcart (Cathcart Consultancy).
James Cathcart, Director of Young Vocies Heard, Consultant, Coach and Mentor (Queens Young
Leaders and The Prince’s Trust). The longest serving CEO of the British Youth Council / UK Youth Parliament, and Head of Target Groups/Mentoring at the Prince’s Trust, James brings over 35 senior level and practitioner experience to our offer of one-to-one coaching and mentoring support to Chief Executives, Chairs, Trustees, SMT and Young Leaders, including Fundraising, Strategy development, Benchmarking and Delivery to national standards. These paid commissions enable James to set aside time for pro-bono mentoring and youth advocacy for projects, campaigns and young voices that would otherwise be unheard. For more details of our services, from ‘Young Voices Heard’ or ‘Cathcart Consultancy’ see Menu.
James Cathcart/Background: I’m a former carer and youth worker, now specialising in supporting others and campaigning for reform. When I took a one-year career break from being the Chief Executive of the British Youth Council/UK Youth Parliament in 2017, I realised there was so much more that could be done to bring together young people wanting to have say with those wanting to listen to them. Inspired by, and still advised by a group of young leaders and alumni of the charities and partners that I’ve worked with, I decided to do something to bring about our shared vision to promote greater youth participation in society and public life – in the boardroom, in communities and in the media. Initially working as Cathcart Consultancy, I have broadened the Youth Voices Heard portfolio to include not-for-profit projects under a Social Enterprise.
Young Voices Heard: Social Enterprise Mission Statement
- Our Social Mission is to support meaningful youth engagement and participation in public life and decision-making, through coaching, mentoring, skills training, support services, networking and recognition.
- We will set up not-for-profit projects, where 100% of the income is spent on direct work, and where we provide trading services we will re-invest the majority of our profits back into Young Voices Heard advocacy work.
- Be autonomous of public/state control
- Be majority controlled in the interests of our social mission
- Be accountable and transparent
James Cathcart, Director 01/01/2020